Gold and iron

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Gold and Iron

BOOKS BY
JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

GOLD AND IRON

THE THREE BLACK PENNT8

MOUNTAIN BLOOD

THE LAY ANTHONY

GOLD AND IRON

By

JOSEPH HERGESHEIMER

NEW YORK

ALFRED 'A' KNOPF

MCMXVm

OOPYRIGHT, .1918, BT
ALFRED A. KNOPF

1

\

1

H

pmnrTED ik tbx ukztsd statis ov ajcbbxca

I

CONTENTS

Wild Oranges .

Page

. 11

Tubal Cam

. Ill

The Dark Fleece

. 227

Wild Oranges

THE ketch drifted into the serene indosuie of the
bay as silently as the reflections moving oyer
the mirrorlike surface of the water. Beyond a
low arm of land that hid the sea the western sky was a
smgle, dear yellow; farther on the left the pale, incal-
culably dd limbs of cypress, their roots bare, were hung
with gathering shadows as ddicate as their own faint fdi-
age. The stillness wacs emphasized by the ceaseless mur-
mur of the waves breaking on the far, seaward bars.

John Wodfolk brought the ketch up where he intended
to anchor and called to the stocking, white-dad figure in
the bow: '' Let go! " There was an answering splash,
a sudden rasp of hawser, the booms swung idle, and the
yacht imperceptibly settled into her berth. The wheel
turned impotently; and, absent-minded, John Woolfolk
locked it. He dropped his long form on a near-by, carpet-
covered fdding chair. He was tired. His sailor, Poul
Halvard, moved about with a noisdess and swift efficiency;
he rolled and cased the jib, and then, with a handful of
canvas stops, secured and covered the mainsail and pro-

[11]

GOLD AND IRON

ceeded aft to the jigger. Unlike Wodfolk, Halvard was
short — dL square figure with a smooth, deep-tanned counte-
nance, colorless and steady, pale blue eyes. His mouth
closed so tightly that it appeared immovable, as if it had
been carved from some obdurate material that opened for
the necessities of neither speech nor sustenance.

Tall John Woolfolk was darkly tanned, too, and had a
grey gaze, by turns sharply focused with bright black
pupils and blankly introspective. He was garbed in white
flannels, with bare ankles and sandals, and an old, collar-
less silk shirt, with sleeves ndled back on virile arms in-
congruously tattooed with gauzy green cicadas.

He stayed motionless while Halvard put the yacht in
order for the night The day's passage through twisting
inland waterways, the hazard of the tides on shifting
flats, the continual concentration on details at once trivial
and highly necessary, had be^i more wearing than the
cyclone the ketch had weathered off Barbuda the year be-
fore. They had been landbound since dawn; and all
day John Woolfdk's instinct had revolted against the
fields and wooded points, turning toward the open sea.

Halvard disappeared into the cabin; and, soon after, a
faint, hot air, the smell of scorched metal, announced the
lighting of the vapor stove, the preparations for supper.
Not a breath stirred the surface of the bay. The water,
as dear and hardly darker than the darkening air, lay
like a great amethyst clasped by its dim corals and the
aim of the land. The glossy foliage that, with the ex-
ception of a small silver beach, chdced the shore might
have been stamped from metal. It was, John Woolfolk
suddenly thought, amazingly still. The atmosphere, too,

[12]

WILD ORANGES

was peculiarly heavy, languorous. It was laden witb the
scents of exotic, flowering trees; he recognized the smooth,
heavy odor of oleanders and the clearer, higher breath of
orange Uosscms.

He was idly surprised at the latter; he had not known
that orange groves had been planted and survived in Geor-
gia. Woolfolk gazed more attentively at the shore, and
made out, back of the luxuriant tangle, the broad white
fa^e of a dwelling. A pair of marine glasses lay on the
deck at his hand; and, adjusting them, he surveyed the
face of a distinguished ruin. The windows on the stained
wall were broken in — they resembled the blank eyes of the
dead; storms had battered loose the neglected roof, leaving
a comer open to sun and rain; he could see through the
foliage lower down great columns fallen about a sweeping
portico.

The house was deserted, he was certain of that — the
melancholy wreckage of a vanished and resplendent time.
Its small principality, flourishing when commerce and
communication had gone by water, was one of the innum-
erable victims of progress and of the concentration of effort
into huge impersonalities. He thought he could trace
other even more complete ruins, but his interest waned.
He laid the glasses back upon the deck. The choked
bubble of boiling water sounded from the cabin, mingled
with the irregular sputter of cooking fat and the clinking
of plates and silver as Halvard set the table. Without,
the light was fading swiftly; the wavering cry of an owl
quivered from the cypress across the water, and the western
sky changed from paler yellow to green. Woolfolk moved
abruptly, and, securing a bucket to the handle of which a

[13]

GOLD AND IRON

i

short rope bad been spliced and finished with an orna-
mental Turk's-head, he swung it overboard and brought
it up half full. In the darkness of the bucket the water
shone with a faint phosphorescence. Then from a basin
he lathered his hands with a thick, pinkish paste, washed
his face, and started toward the cabin.

He was already in the ccmpanionway when, glancing
across the still surface of the bay, he saw a swirl moving
into view about a small point. He thought at first that it
was a fish, but the next moment saw the white, graceful
silhouette of an aim. It was a woman swimming. John
Woolfolk could now plainly make out the free, solid mass
of her hair, the round, smoothly turning shoulder. She
was swinmiing with deliberate ease, with a long, single
overarm stroke; and it was evident that she had not seen i

the ketch. Woolfolk stood, his gaze level with the cabin
top, watching her assured progress. She turned again,
moving out frcnn the shore, then suddenly stopped. ;

Now, he realized, she saw him. ^

The swimmer hung motionless for a breath; then, with
a strong, sinuous drive, she whirled about and made swiftly
for the point of land. She was visible for a short space,
low in the water, her hair wavering in the dear flood, and
then disappeared abruptly behind the point, leaving behind
— a last, vanishing trace of her silent^ passage — a smooth,
subsiding wake on the surface of the bay.

John Woolfolk mechanically descended the three short
steps to the cabin. There had been something extraordi-
nary in the woman's brief appearance out of the odorous
tangle of the shore, with its ruined habitation. It had
caught him imprepared, in a moment of half weary rdaxa-

[14]

4

WILD ORANGES

ticm, and his imaginatioii responded with a faint question
to which it had been long unaccustomed But Halvard,
in crisp white, standing back of the steaming supper
viands, brought his thoughts again to the day's familiar
routine.

. The cabin was divided through its forward half by the
centerboard casing, and against it a swinging table had
been elevated, an immaculate cover laid, and the yacht's
china, marked in cobalt with the name *' Gar," placed in
a polished and formal order. Halvard's service from the
stove to the table was as silent and skillful as his housing
of the sails; he replaced the hot dishes with cold, and pro-
vided a glass bowl of translucent preserved figs.

Supper at an end, Woolfolk rolled a cigarette frcHn
shag that resembled coarse black tea and returned to
the deck. Night had fallen on the shore, but the water
still held ar pale light; in the east the sky was filled with
an increasing, cold radiance. It was the moon, rising
swiftly above the flat land. The moonlight grew in
intensity, casting inky shadows of the spars and cordage
across the deck, making the light in the cabin a reddish
blur by contrast. The icy flood swept over the land,
bringing out with a new emphasis the close, glossy foliage
and broken fagade — it appeared unreal, portentous.
The odors of the flowers, of the orange blossoms, un-
coiled in heavy, palpable waves across the water, accom-
panied by the owl's fluctuating cry. The sense of immi-
nence increased, of a genius loci unguessed and troublous,
vaguely threatening in the perfumed dark.

[15]

GOLD AND IRON

II

John Wodfolk bad said nothing to Halvafd of tte
woman he bad seen swimming in the bay. He was con-
scious of no particular reason for remaining silent about
her; but the thing had become invested with a glamour
that, he fdt, would be destroyed by commonplace discus-
sion. He had no personal interest in the episode, he was
careful to add. Interests of that sort, serving to connect
him with the world, with society, with women, had totally
disappeared from his life. He rdUed and lighted a fresh
cigarette, and in the minute orange spurt of the match his
mouth was set, forbidding, his gaze somber. (

The unexpected appearance on the glassy water had
merely started into being a slight, fanciful curiosity. The
women of that coast did not commonly swim at dusk in
their bays; such simplicity obtained now only in the
reaches of the highest civilization. There were, he knew,
no hunting camps here, and the local inhabitants were
mere sodden squatters. A chart lay in its flat canvas case
by the wheel; and, in the crystal flood of the moon, he
easily reaffinned from it his knowledge of the yacht's
position. Nothing could be dose by but scattered huts and
such wreckage as that looming palely above the deanders.

Yet a woman had unquestionably appeared swimming
from behind the point of land off the bow of the Gar. The
women native to the locality, and the men, too, were
fanatical in the avoidance of any unnecessary exterior
application of water. His thoughts moved in a monoto-
nous drde, while the enveloping radiance constantly in-
creased. It became as light as a spedes of unnatural day,

i

WILD ORANGES

where every leaf was clearly revealed but robbed of all
color and familiar meaning.

He grew restless, and rose, making his way forward
about the narrow deck-space outside the cabin. Halvard
was seated on a coil of rope beside the windlass and stood
erect as Woolfolk approached. The sailor was smoking
a short pipe, and the bowl made a crimson spark in his
thick, powerful hand. John Woolfolk fingered the wood
surface of the windlass bitts and found it rough and
gummy. Halvard said instinctively:

'^ I'd better start scraping the mahogany tomorrow, it's
getting white."

Woolfolk nodded. Halvard was a good man. He had
the valuable quality of commonly anticipating spoken
desires. He was a Norwegian, out of the Lofoden Islands,
where sailors are surpassingly schooled in the Arctic seas.
Poul Halvard, so far as Woolfolk could discover, was
impervious to cold, to fatigue, to the insidious whispering
of mere flesh. He was a man without temptation, with an
untroubled allegiance to a duty that involved an endless,
exacting labor; and for those reasons he was austere,
withdrawn from the community of more fragile and
sympathetic natures. At times his inflexible integrity
oppressed John Woolfolk. Halvard, he thought, was a
difficult man to live up to.

He turned and absently surveyed the landc His rest-
lessness increased. He felt a strong desire for a larger
freedom of space than that offered by the Gar, and it
occurred to him that he might go ashore in the tender. He
moved aft with this idea growing to a determination.
In the cabin, on the shelf above the berths built against

[17]

i

GOLD AND IRON

the sides of the ketch, he found an old blue flannel coat,
with crossed squash rackets and a monogram embroidered
in yellow on the breast pocket. Slipping it on he dropped
over the stem of the tender. i

Halvard came instantly aft, but Woolfolk declined the
mutely offered service. The oars made a silken swish in
the still bay as he pulled away from the yacht. The
latter's riding light, swung on the forestay, hung without
a quiver, like a fixed yellow star. He looked once over
his shoulder, and then the bow of the tender ran with a
soft shock upon the beach. Woolfolk bedded the anchor
in the sand and then stood gazing curiously before him.

On his right a thicket of oleanders drenched the air with
the perfume of their heavy poisonous flowering, and
behind them a rough clearing of saw grass swept up to the
d6bris of the fallen portico. To the left, beyond the black
hole of a decaying well, rose the walls of a second brick
building, smaller than the dwelling. A few shreds of
rotten porch clung to its face, while the moonlight, pour-
ing through a break above, fell in a livid bar across the
obscurity of a high, single chamber.

Between the crumbling piles there was the faint trace
of a footway, and Woolfolk advanced to where, inside a
dilapidated, sheltering fence, he came upon a dark, com-
pact mass of trees and smelled the increasing sweetness of
orange blossoms. He struck the remains of a board path,
and progressed with the cold, waxy leaves of the orange
trees brushing his face. There was, he saw in the grey
brightness, ripe fruit among the branches, and he mechani-
cally picked an orange and then another. They were
small but heavy, and had fine skins.

[18]

If

•'i

WILD ORANGES

He tore one open and put a section in his mouth. It
was at first surprisingly bitter, and he involuntarily flung
away what remained in his hand. But after a moment he
found that the oranges possessed a pungency and zestfu]i
flavor that he had tasted in no others. Then he saw,
directly heiore him, a pale, rectangular light which he
recognized as the opened door of a habitation.

Ill

He advanced more slowly, and a low, irregular house
detached itself from the tangled growth pressing upon it
from all sides. The doorway, dimly lighted by an in-
visible lamp from within, was now near by; and John
Woolfolk saw a shape cross it so swiftly furtive that it was
gone before he realized that a man had vanished into the
hall. There was a second stir on the small, covered
portico, and the slender, white-clad figure of a woman
moved uncertainly forward. He stopped just at the
moment in which a low, clear voice queried: ^' What do
you want? "

The question was directly put, and yet the tone held
an inexplicably acute apprehension. The woman's voice
bore a delicate, bell-like shiver of fear.

" Nothing," he hastened to assure her, " When I came
ashore I thought no one was living here."

" You're from the white boat that sailed in at simset? "

" Yes," he replied, " and I am returning immediately."

'* It was like magic! " she continued. " Suddenly,

without a sound, you were in the bay, like a great gull."

[19]

GOLD AND IRON

Even this quiet statement bore the shadowy alarm. John
Woolfolk realized that it had not been caused by his ab-
rupt appearance; the faint accent of dread was fixed in
the illusive form before him.

" I have robbed you too," he continued in a lighter
tone. " Your oranges are in my pocket."

"You won't like them," she returned indirectly;
"they've run wild. We can't sell them."

" They have a distinct appeal of their own," he assured
her. " I should be glad to have some on the Gar!*

" All you want."

" My man will get them and pay yxni."

"Please don't " She stopped abruptly, as if a

sudden consideration had interrupted a liberal courtesy.
When she spoke again the apprehension, Woolfolk thought,
had increased to palpable fright. " We would charge you
very little," she said finally. " Nicholas attends to that."

Silence fell upon them. She stood with her hand rest-
ing lightly against an upright support, coldly revealed by
the moon. John Woolfolk saw that, although slight, her
body was delicately full, and that her shoulders held a
droop which somehow resembled the shadow on her vdce.
She bore an unmistakable refinement of being strange in
that locality of meager humanity. Her speech totally
lacked the half -intelligible, loose slurring of the natives.

"Won't you sit down," she at last broke the silence.
" My father was here when you came up, but he went in.
Strangers disturb him."

Woolfolk moved to the portico, elevated above the
ground, where he found a momentary place. The woman
sank back into a low chair. The stillness gathered about

[20]

r

WILD ORANGES

them GDce more, and he mechanically rolled a cigarette.
Her white dress, although simply and rudely made, gained
distinction from her free, graceful lines; her feet, in black,
heelless slippers, were narrow and sharply cut. He saw
that hbr countenance bore an even pallor on which her
eyes made shadows like those on marble.

These details, unremarkable in themselves, were charged
with a peculiar intensity. John Woolfolk, who long ago
had put such considerations from his existence, was yet
clearly conscious of the disturbing quality of her person.
She possessed the indefinable property of charm. Si;ich
women, he knew, stirred life profoundly, reanimating it
with extraordinary efforts and desires. Their mere pas-
sage, the pressure of their fingers, were more imperative
than the life-service of others; the flutter of their breath
could be more tyrannical that the most poignant memories
and vows.

John Woolfolk thought these things in a manner abso-
lutely detached. They touched him at no point. Never-
theless, the faint curiosity stirred within him remained.
The house unexpectedly inhabited behind the ruined
fagade on the water, the magnetic woman with the echo
of apprehension in her cultivated voice, the parent, so
easily disturbed, even the mere name '' Nicholas," all held
a marked potentiality of emotion; they were set in an
almost hysterical key.

He was suddenly conscious of the odorous pressure of
the flowering trees, of the orange blossoms and the
oleanders. It was stifling. He felt that he must escape
at once, from all the cloying and insidious scents of the
earth, to the open and sterile sea. The thick tangle in

[21]

GOLD AND IRON

the colorless li^t of the moon, the dimmer portico with its
enigmatic figure, were a cunning essence of the existence
he had fled. Life's traps were set with just such treach-
eries—perfume and mystery and the veiled lure of sex.

He rose with an uncouth abruptness, a meager common-
place, and almost fled over the path to the beach, toward
the refuge, the release, of the Gar.

John Woolfolk woke at dawn. A thin, bluish light
filled the cabin; above, Halvard was washing the deck.
The latter was vigorously swabbing the cockpit when
Woolfolk appeared, but he paused.

" Perhaps," the sailor said, " you will stay here for a
day or two. I'd like to unship the propeller, and there's
the scraping. It's a good anchorage."

"We're moving on south," Woolfolk replied, stating
ihfe determinaticxi with which he had retired. Then the
full sense of Halvard's words penetrated his waking mind.
The propeller, he knew, had not opened properly for the
week gone; and the anchorage was undoubtedly good.
This was the last place, before entering the Florida passes,
for whatever minor adjustments were necessary.

The matted shore, flushed with the rising sun, was
starred with white and deep pink blooms; a ray gilded
the blank wall of the deserted mansion. The scent of the
orange blossoms was not as insistent as it had been on the
previous evening. The land appeared normal; it exhib-
ited none of the disturbing influence of which he had been
first conscious. Last night's mood seemed inflated.

" You are quite right," he altered his pronouncement;
" we'll put the Gar in order here. People are living be-
hind the grove, and therell be water."

[22]

WILD ORANGES

He bad, for breakfast, oranges brougbt down tbe coast,
and be was surprised at tbeir sudden insipidity. Tbey
were little better tban faintly sweetened water. He turned
and in tbe pocket of bis flannel coat found one of those be
bad picked tbe nigbt before. It was as keen as a knife;
tbe peculiar aroma bad, witbout doubt, robbed bim of all
desire for tbe cultivated oranges of commerce.

Halvard was in tbe tender, under tbe stem of tbe ketcb,
wben it occurred to Jobn Woolfdk tbat it would be wise
to go asbore and establish bis assertion of an adequate
water supply. He explained tbis briefly to tbe sailor, wbo
put bim on tbe small sbingle of sand. There be turned
to tbe right, moving idly in a direction away from tbat
he had taken before.

He crossed tbe comer of tbe demolished abode, made
bis way through a press of sere cabbage palmettos and
emerged suddenly on the blinding expanse of the sea. The
limpid water lay in a bright rim over corrugated and
pitted rock, where shallow ultramarine pools were gardens
of sulpbur-ydlow and rose anemones. The land curved
in upon the left; a ruined landing extended over tbe placid
tide, and, seated there with her back toward bim, a woman
was fishing.

It was, be saw immediately, the woman of tbe portico.
At tbe moment of recognition she tumed, and after a brief
inspection, slowly waved her band. He approached,
crossing tbe openings in the precarious boarding of the
landing, imtil be stood over her. She said:

'^ There^s an old sheepsbead under here I've been after
for a year. If you'll be very still you can see bim."

She tumed her face up to him, and he saw that bier

[23]

GOLD AND IRON

1

cheeks were without trace of color. At the same time
he reaffirmed all that he felt before with regard to the
potent quality of her being. She had a lustrous mass of
warm brown hair twisted into a loose knot that had slid
forward over a broad, low brow; a pointed chin; and pale,
disturbing lips. But her eyes were her most notable fea-
ture — they were widely opened and extraordinary in
color; the only similitude that occurred to John Woolfolk
was the grey greenness of olive leaves. In them he felt the
same boding that had shadowed her voice. The fleet pas-
sage of her gaze left an indelible impression of an expect-
ancy that was at once a dread and a strangely youthful
candor. She was, he thought, about thirty.

She wore now a russet skirt of thin, coarse texture that,
like the dress of the evening, took a slim grace from her
fine body, and a white waist, frayed from many washings,
open upon her smooth, round throat.

"He's usually by this post," she continued, pointing
down through the clear gloom of the water.

Woolfolk lowered himself to a position at her side, his
gaze following her direction. There, after a moment, he
distinguished the black and white barred sheepshead wa-
vering about the piling. His companion was fishing with
a short, heavy rod from which time had dissolved the var-
nish, a crazy brass reel that complained shrilly whenever
the lead was raised or lowered, and a thick, freely knotted
line.

" You should have a leader," he told her. " The old
gentleman can see your line too plainly."

There was a sharp pull, she rapidly turned the handle

[24]

WILD ORANGES

of the protesting red, and drew up a gasping, bony &sii
with extended red wings.

" Another robin! " she cried tragically. " This is get-
ting serious.' Dinner," she informed him, ** and not sport,
is my object."

He looked out to where a channel made a deep blue
stain through the paler cerulean of the sea. The tide, he
saw from the piling, was low.

''There should be a rockfish in the pass,'' he pro-
nounced.

" What good if there is? " she returned. " I couldn't
possibly throw out there. And if I could, why disturb a
rock with this? " She shook the short awkward rod, the
knotted line.

He privately acknowledged the palpable truth of her
objections, and rose.

'' I've some fishing things on the ketch," he said, moving
away. He blew shrilly on a whistle from the beach, and
Halvard dropped over the Gar's side into the tender.

Woolfolk was soon back on the wharf, stripping the
canvas cover from the long cane tip of a fishing rod bril*
liantly wound with green and vermilion, and fitting it into
a dark, silver-capped butt. He locked a capacious reel
into place, and, drawing a thin line through agate guides,
attached a glistening steel leader and chained hook.
Then, adding a freely swinging lead, he picked up the
small mullet that lay by his companion.

'' Does that have to go? " she demanded. " It's such a
slim chance and it is my only mullet."

He ruthlessly sliced a piece from the silvery side; and,

[25]

GOLD AND IRON

rising and switching his reel's gear, he cast. The lead
swung far out across the water and fell on the farther side
of the channel.

^'But that's dazzling!" she exclaimed; "as though
you had shot it out of a gun."

He tightened the line, and sat with the rod resting in
a leather socket fastened to his belt.

" Now," she stated, " we will watch at the vain sacrifice
of an only mullet."

The day was superb, the sky sparkled like a great blue
sun; schools of young mangrove snappers swept through
the pellucid water. The woman said:

" Where did you come from and where are you going? "

"Cape Cod," he replied; "and I am going to the
Guianas."

" Isn't that South America? " she queried. " I've trav-
eled far — on maps. Guiana," she repeated the name
softly. For a moment the faint dread in her voice changed
to longing. " I think I know all the beautiful names of
places on the earth," she continued: "Tarragona and
Seriphos and Cambodia."

" Some of them you have seen? "

" None," she answered simply. " I was bom here, in
the house you know, and I have never been fifty miles
away."

This, he told himself, was incredible. The mystery that
surrounded her deepened, stirring more strongly his im-
personal curiosity.

" You are surprised," she added; " it's mad, but true.
There — there is a reason." She stopped abruptly, and,
neglecting her fishing rod, sat with her hands clasped

[26]

WILD ORANGES

about slim knees. She gazed at him slowly, and he was
impressed once more by the remarkable quality of her eyes,
grey green like olive leaves and strangely young. The
momentary interest created in her by romantic and far
names faded, gave place to the familiar trace of fear.
In the long past he would have responded inmiediately to
the appeal of her pale, magnetic countenance. ... He
had broken all connection with society, with

There was a sudden, impressive jerk at his line, the
rod instantly assumed the shape of a bent bow, and, as he
rose, the reel handle was lost in a grey blur and the line
streaked out through the dipping tip. His companion
hung breathless at his shoulder.

"He'll take all your line," she lamented as the fish
continued his straight, outward course, while Wodfolk
kept an even pressure on the rod.

" A hundred yards," he announced as he fdt a threaded
mark wheel from under his thumb. Then: " A hundred
and fifty.. I'm afraid it's a shark." As he spoke the fish
leaped clear of the water, a spot of molten silver, and fell
back in a sparkling blue spray. " It's a rock," he added.
He stopped the run mcxnentarily; the rod bent perilously
double, but the fish halted. Woolfblk reeled in smoothly,
but another rush followed as strong as the first. A long,
equal struggle ensued, the thin line was drawn as rigid
as metal, the rod quivered and arched. Once the rockfish
was dose enough to be clearly distinguishable — strongly
built, heavy-shouldered, with black stripes drawn from
gills to tail. But he was off again, with a short, blunder-
ing rush.

" If you will hold the rod," Woolfolk directed his com-

[27]

GOLD AND IRON

panion, *' I'll gaff him." She took the rod while he bent
over the wharf's side. The fish, on the surface of the
water, half turned; and, striking the gaff through the jaw,
Woolf 61k swung him up on the boarding.

"There," he pronounced, "are several dinners. Ill
carry him to your kitchen."

"Nicholas would do it, but he's away," she told him;
" and my father is not strong enough. That's a leviathan. "

John Woolfolk placed a handle through the rockfish's
gills, and, carrying it with an obvious effort, he followed
her over a narrow, trampled path through the rasped
palmettos. They approached the dwelling from behind
the orange grove; and, coming suddenly to the porch, sur-
prised an incredibly thin, grey man in the act of lighting a
small stone pipe with a reed stem. The latter was sitting,
but when he saw Woolfolk he started sharply to his feet,
and the pipe fell, shattering the bowl.

"My father," the woman pronounced: "Lichfield
Stope."

"Millie," he stuttered painfully, "you know — I —
strangers " »

John Woolfolk thought, as he presented himself, that he
had never before seen such an immaterial living figure.
Lichfield Stope was like the shadow of a man draped with
unsubstantial, dusty linen. Into his waxen face beat a
pale infusion of blood, as if a diluted wine had been
poured into a semi-opaque goblet; his sunken lips puffed
out and collapsed; his fingers, dust-colored like his garb,
q)ened and shut with a rapid, mechanical rigidity.

" Father," Millie Stope remonstrated, " you must man-
age yourself better. You know I wouldn't bring any one

[28]

WILD ORANGES

to the house who would hurt us. And see — we are
fetching you a splendid rockfish."

The older man made a convulsive effort to r^ain his
composure.

" Ah, yes," he muttered; " just so."

The flush receded from his indeterminate countenance.
Woolfblk saw that he had a goatee laid like a wasted yel-
low finger on his chin, and that his hands hung on wrists
like twisted copper wires from circular cuffs fastened with
large mosaic buttons.

" We are alone here," he proceeded in a fluctuating
voice, the voice of a shadow; ^'the man is away. My

daughter — I " He grew inaudible, although his

lips maintained a faint movement.

The fear that lurked illusively in the daughter was in
the parent magnified to an appalling panic, an instinctive,
acute agony that had crushed everything but a thin, tor-
mented spark of life. He passed his hand over a brow as
dry as the spongy limbs of the cypress, brushing a scant
lock like dead, bleached moss.

"The fish," he pronounced; "yes . . . acceptable."

" If you will carry it back for me," Millie Stope re-
quested; " we have no ice; I must put it in water." He
followed her about a bay window with ornamental fretting
that bore the shreds of old, variegated paint He could
see, amid an incongruous wreckage within, a dismantled
billiard table, its tom doth faintly green beneath a film
of dust They turned and arrived at the kitchen door.
"There, please." She indicated a bench on the outside
wall, and he deposited his burden.

"You have been very nice," she told him, rendering

[29]

GOLD AND IRON

her phrase less commonplace by a glance of her wide, ap-
pealing eyes. " Now, I suppose, you will go on across the
world? "

" Not tonight," he replied distantly.

" Perhaps, then, you will come ashore again. We see
so few people. My father would benefit. It was only at
first — so suddenly; he was startled."

" There is a great deal to do on the ketch," he replied
indirectly, maintaining his retreat from the slightest ad-
vance of life. *' I came ashore to discover if you had a
large water supply and if I might fill my casks."

" Rain water," she informed him; " the cistern is full."

"Then 1*11 send Halvard to you." He withdrew a
step, but paused at the incivility of his leaving.

A sudden weariness had settled over the shoulders of
Millie Stope; she appeared young and very white. Wool-
folk was acutely conscious of her utter isolation with^ the
shivering figure on the porch, the unmaterialized Nicholas.
She had delicate hands.

" Good-by," he said, bowing formally. " And thank
you for the fishing."

He whistled shaiply for the tender.

IV

Throughout the afternoon, with a triangular scraping
iron, he assisted Halvard in removing the whitened varnish
from the yacht's mahogany. They worked silently, with
only the shrill note of the edges drawing across the wood,
while the westering sun plunged its diagonal rays far
into the transparent depths of the bay. The Gar floated

[30]

WILD ORANGES

motionless on water like a pale evening over purple and
silver flowers threaded by flsh painted vermilion and green
like parrakeets. Inshore the pallid cypresses seemed, as
John Woolfolk watched them, to twist in febrile pain.
With the waning of day the land took on its air of
unhealthy mystery; the mingled, heavy scents floated out
in a sickly tide; the ruined facade glimmered in the half
light.

Woolfolk's thoughts turned back to the woman li^dng
in the miasma of perfume and secret fear. He heard
again her wistful voice pronounce the names of far places,
of Tarragona and Seriphos, investing them with the accent
of an intense hopeless desire. He thought of the inexplic-
able place of her birth and of the riven, unsubstantial
figure of the man with the blood pulsing into his ocherous
face. Some old, profound error or calamity had laid its
blight upon the latter, he was certain; but the most lament-
able inheritance was not sufficient to account for the acute
apprehension in his daughter's tones. This was different
in kind from the spiritual collapse of the aging man. It
was actual, he realized that, proceeding — in part at least
— from without.

He wondered, scraping with difficulty the undertuming
of a cathead, if whatever dark tide was centered above her
would, perhaps, descend through the oleander-scented
night and stifle her in the stagnant dwelling. He had a
swift, vividly complete vision of the old man face down
upon the floor in a flickering, reddish light.

He smiled in self-contempt at this neurotic fancy; and,
straightening his cramped muscles, rolled a cigarette. It
might be that the years he had spent virtually alone on

[31]

GOLD AND IRON

the silence of various waters had affected his brain. Hal-
yard's broad, concentrated countenance, the steady, grave
gaze and determined mouth, cleared Woolfolk's mmd of
its phantoms. He moved to the cockpit and from there
said:

" That will do for today.'*

Halvard followed, and commenced once more the fa-
miliar, ordered preparations for supper. John Woolfolk,
smoking while the sky turned to malachite, became sharply
aware of the unthinkable monotony of the universal course,
of the centuries wheeling in dull succession into infinity.
Life seemed to him no more varied than the wire drum
in which squirrels raced nowhere. His own lot, he told
himself grimly, was no worse than another. Existence
was all of the same drab piece. It had seemed gay enough
when he was young, worked with gold and crimscm
threads, and then

His thoughts were broken by Halvard's appearance in
the companionway, and he descended to his solitary supper
in the contracted, still cabin.

Again on deck his senise of the monotony of life trebled.
He had been cruising now about the edges of continents
for twelve years. For twelve years he had taken no part
in the existence of the cities he had passed — as often as
possible without stopping — and of the villages gathered
invitingly imder their canopies of trees. He was —
yes, he must be — forty-six. Life was passing away;
well, let it — worthless.

The growing radiance of the moon glimmered acrosi^ the
water and folded the land in a gossamer veil. The same
uneasiness, the inchoate desire to go ashore that had seized

[32]

WILD ORANGES

upon him the night before, reasserted its influence. The
face of Millie Stope floated about him like a magic gar-
denia in the night of the matted trees. He resisted the
pressure longer than before; but in the end he was seated
in the tender, pulling toward the beach.

He entered the orange grove and slowly approached the
house beyond. Millie St(^ advanced with a quick wel-
come.

'' I'm glad/' she said simply. '^ Nicholas is back. The
fish weighed "

** I think I'd better not know," he interrupted. ** I
might be tempted to mention it in the future, when it
would take on the historic suspicion of the fish story."

''But it was imposing," she protested. "Let's go to
the sea; it's so limifless in the moonlight."

He followed her over the path to where the remains of
the wharf projected into a sea as black, and as solid ap-
parently, as ebony, and across which the moon flung a
narrow way like a chalk mark. Millie Stqpe seated her-
self on the boarding and he found a place near by. Sh<5
leaned forward, with her arms propped up and her chin
couched on her palms. Her potency increased rather than
diminished with association; her skin had a rare texture;
her movements, the turn of the wrists, were distinguished.
He wondered again at the strangeness of her situation.

She looked about suddenly and surprised his palpable
questioning.

"You are puzzled," she pronounced. "Perhaps you
are setting me in the middle of romance. Please don't!
Nothing you might guess — -" She broke off abruptly,
returned to her former pose. " And yet," she added prcs-

[33]

GOLD AND IRON

ently, "I have a perverse desire to talk about myself.
It's perverse because, although you are a little curious,
you have no real interest in what I might say. There is
something about you like — yes, like the cast-iron dog
that used to stand in our lawn. It rusted away, cold to
the last and indifferent, although I talked to it by the
hour. But I did get a little comfort from its stolid painted
eye. Perhaps you'd act in the same way.

" And then," she went on when Woolfolk had somberly
failed to comment, " you are going away, you will forget,
it can't possibly matter. I must talk, now that I have
urged myself this far. After all, you needn't have come
back. But where shall I begin ? You should know some-
thing of the very first. That happened in Virginia* . . .
My father didn't go to war," she said, sudden and dear.
She turned her face toward him, and he saw that it had lost
its flower-like quality, it looked as if it had been carved
in stone.

"He lived in a small, intensely loyal town," she con-
tinued; " and when Virginia seceded it burned with a
single high flame of sacrifice. My father had been always
a diffident man; he collected mezzotints and avoided peo-
ple. So, when the enlistment began, he shrank away from
the crowds and hot speeches, and the men went off without
him. He lived in complete retirement then, with his
prints, in a town of wcxnen. It wasn't impossible at first;
he discussed the situation with the few old tradesmen that
remained, and exchanged bows with the wives and daugh-
ters of his friends. But when the dead commenced to be
brought in from the front it got worse. Belle Semple —

[34]

WILD ORANGES

he had always thought her unusually nice and pretty —
mocked at him on the street. Then one morning he found
an apron tied to the knob of the front door.

" After that he went out only at night. His servants
had deserted him, and he lived by himself in a biggish,
solemn house. Sometimes the news of losses and deaths
would be shouted through his windows; once stones were
thrown in, but mostly he was let alone. It must have been
frightful in his empty rooms when the South went from
bad to worse." She paused, and John Woolfolk could
see, even in the obscurity, the slow shudder that passed
over her.

" When the war was over and what men were left re-
turned — one with hands gone at the wrists, another with-
out legs in a shabby wheelchair -— the life of the town
started once more, but my father was forever outside of it^
Little subscriptions for burials were made up, small
schemes for getting the necessities, but he was never
asked. Men spoke to him again, even some of the women.
That was all.

" I think it was then that a curious, perpetual dread
fastened on his mind — a fear of the wind in the night, of
breaking twigs or sudden voices. He ordered things to
be left on the steps, and he would peer out from imder
the blind to make sure that the walk was empty before he
opened the door.

" You must realize," she said in a sharper voice, " that
my father was not a pure coward at first. He was an
extremely sensitive man who hated the rude stir of living
and who simply asked to be left undisturbed with his port-

[35]

GOLD AND IRON

folios. But life's not like that. The war hunted him out
and ruined him; it destroyed his being, just as it destroyed
the fortunes of others.

"Then he began to think — it was absolute fancy. —
that there was a conspiracy in the town to kill him. He
sent some of his things away, got together what money he
had, and one night left his home secretly on foot. He
tramped south for weeks, living for a while in small place
after place, until he reached Georgia, and then a town
about fifty miles from here "

She broke off, sitting rigidly erect, looking out ever the
level black sea with its shifting, chalky line of light, and
a long silence followed. The antiphonal crying of the
owls sounded over the bubbling swatnp, the mephitic per^
fume hung like a vapor on the shore. John Woolfolk
shifted his position.

"My mother told me this," his companion said sud-
denly. "Father Repeated it over and over through the
nights after they were married. He slept only in snatches,
and would wake with a gasp and his heart almost bursting.
I know almost nothing about her, except that she had a
brave heart — or she would have gone mad. She was
English and had been a governess. They met in the lit-
tle hotel where they were married. Then father bought
this place, and they came here to live."

Woolfolk had a vision of the tenuous figure of Lich-
field Stope; he was surprised that such acute agony had
left the slightest trace of humanity; yet the other, after
forty years of torment, still survived to shudder at a chance
footfall, the advent of a casual and harmless stranger.

This, then, was by implication the history of the woman

[36]

WILD ORANGES

at his side; it disposed of the mystery that had veiled her
situation here. It was surprisingly dear, even to the
subtle influence that, inherited from her father, had set the
shadow of his own obsession upon her voice and eyes.
Yet, in the moment that she had been made explicable, he
recalled the conviction that the knowledge of an actual
menace lurked in her mind; he had seen it in the t^isioii
of her body, in the anxiety of fleet, backward glances.

The latter, he told himself, might be merely a symptom
of mental sickness, a condition natural to the influences
under which she had been formed. He tested and re-
jected that possibility — there could be no doubt of her
absolute sanity. It was patent in a hundred details of her
carriage, in her mentality as it had been revealed in her
restrained, balanced narrative.

There was, too, the element of her mother to be con-
sidered. Millie Stope had known very little about her,
principally the sdf-evident fact of the latter's "brave
heart." It would have needed that to remain steadfast
through the racking recitals of the long, waking darks;
to accompany to this desolate and lonely refuge the man
who had had an apron tied to his doorknob. In the
degree that the daughter had been a prey to the man's fear
she would have benefited from the stifler qualities of the
English governess. Life once more assumed its enigmatic
masL

His companion said:

"All that — and I haven't said a word about myself,
the real end of the soliloquy. I'm permanently discour-
aged; I have qualms about boring you. No, I shall never
find another listener as satisfactory as the iron dog."

[37]

GOLD AND IRON

A light glimmered far at sea. " I sit here a great deal/'
she informed him, " and watch the ships, a thumbprint of ^
blue smoke at day and a spark at night, going up and
down their water roads. You are enviable — getting up
your anchor, sailing where you like, safe and free." Her
voice took on a passionate intensity that surprised him; it
was sick with weariness and longing, with sudden revolt
from the pervasive apprehension.

" Safe and free," he repeated thinly, as if satirizing the
condition implied by those commonplace, assuaging words.
He had, in his flight from society, sought simply peace.
John Woolfolk now questioned all his implied success.
He had found the elemental hush of the sea, the iron aloof-
ness of rocky and uninhabited coasts, but he had never
been able to still the dull rebellion within, the legacy of
the past. A feeling of complete failure settled over him.
His safety and freedom amounted to this — that life had
broken him and cast him aside.

A long, hollow wail rose from the land, and Millie
Stope moved sharply.

"There's Nicholas," she exclaimed, "blowing on the
conch! They don't know where I am; I'd better go in."

A small, evident panic took possession of her; the shiver
in her voice swelled.

" No, don't come," she added. " 111 be quicker with-
out you." She made her way over the wharf to the shore,
but there paused. " I suppose you'll be going soon? "

" Tomorrow probably," he answered.

On the ketch Halvard had gone below for the night.
The yacht swayed slightly to an unseen swell; the riding
light moved backward and forward, its ray flickering over

[38]

WILD ORANGES

the glassy water. Jdm Woolfolk brought his bedding
from the cabin, and, disponing it on deck, lay with his
wakeful dark face set against the far, multitudinous
worlds.

In the morning Halvard proposed a repainting of the
engine.

"The Florida air," he said, "eats metal overnight."
And the ketch remained anchored.

Later in the day Woolfolk sounded the water casks
cradled in the cockpit, and, when they answered hollow,
directed his man with regard to their refilling. They
drained a cask, Halvard put it on the tender and pulled
in to the beach. There Woolfolk saw him shoulder the
empty container and disappear among the trees.

He was forward, preparing a chain hawser for coral
anchorages, when he saw Halvard tramping shortly back
over the sand. He entered the tender, and, with a vicious
shove, rowed with a powerful, vindictive sweep toward
the ketch. The cask evidently had been left behind. He
made the tender fast and swung aboard with his notable
agility.

" There's a damn idiot in that house," he declared, in a
surprising departure from his customary detached manner.

" Explain yourself," Woolfolk demanded shortly.

" But I'm going back after him," the sailor stubbornly
proceeded. " 111 turn any knife out of his hand." It was
evident that he was laboring under an intense growing
excitement and anger.

[39]

GOLD AND IRON

'^Tbe only idiot's not on land," Woolfolk told hixn.
** Where's the water cask you took ashoie? "

" Broken."

" How? "

** III tell you fast enough. There was nobody about
when I went up to the house, although there was a chair
rocking on the porch as if a person had just left I
knocked at the door; it was opem^ and I was certain that
I heard someone inside, but nobody answered. Then after
a bit I went around back. The kitchen was <^en, too, and
no one in sight. I saw the water cistern and thought I'd
fill up, when yoa could say something afterward. I did,
and was rolling the cask about the house when this — this
loggerhead came out of the bushes. He wanted to know
what I was getting away with, and I explained, but it
didn't suit him. He said I might be telling facts and
again I mightn't I saw there was no use talking, and
started rolling the cask again; but he put his foot on it,
and I pushed one way and he the other "

" And between you, you stove in the cask," Woolfolk
interrupted.

" That's it," Poul Halvard answered concisely. " Then
I got mad, and offered to beat in his face, but he had
a knife. I could have brd^en it out of his grip — I've
done it before in a place or two — but I thought I'd
better come aboard and report before anything general
began."

John Woolfolk was momentarily at a loss to establish
the identity of Halvard's assailant.

Then he realized that it must be Nicholas, whom he
had never seen, and who had blown such an imperative

[40]

WILD ORANGES

summons on the conch the night before. Halyard's tem-
per was communicated to him; he moved abruptly to where
the tender was fastened.

" Put me ashore," he directed. He would make it dear
that his man was not to be interrupted in the execution
of his orders, and that his property could not be arbi-
trarily destroyed.

When the tender ran upon the beach and had been se*-
cured, Halvard started to follow him, but Woblfolk waved
him back. There was a stir on the portico as he ap-
proached, the flitting of an unsubstantial form; but, has-
tening, John Woolfolk arrested Lichfield Stope in the
doorway.

'^ Morning," he nodded abruptly. *^ I came to speak
to you about a water cask of mine.

The other swayed like a thin, grey column of smoke.

"Ah, yes," he pronounced with difl&culty. "Water
cask '"

" It was broken here a little while back."

At the suggestion of violence such a pitiable panic fell
upon the older man that Woolfolk halted. Lichfield
Stope raised his hands as if to ward off the mere impact
of the words themsdves; his face was stained with the
thin red tide of congestion.

"You have a man named Nicholas," Woolfolk pro-
ceeded. " I should like to see him."

The other made a gesture as tremulous and indetermi*
nate as his speech and appeared to dissolve into the hall.
John Woolfolk stood for a moment undecided and then
moved about the house toward the kitchen. There, he
thought, he might obtain an explanation of the breaking

[41]

GOLD AND IRON

of tbe cask. A man was moving about within and came
to tbe door as Wodfolk approacbed.

Tbe latter told bimself tbat be bad never seen a blanker
countenance. In profile it sbowed a narrow brow, a buge,
drooping nose, a pincbed moutb and insignificant cbin.
From tbe front tbe face of tbe man in tbe doorway beld
tbe round, unscored cbeeks of a fat and sleepy boy. Tbe
eyes were mere long glimmers of vision in tbick folds of
flesb; tbe moutb, upturned at tbe comers, lent a fixed,
mecbanical smile to tbe wbole. . It was a countenance on
wbicb tbe passage of time and tbougbts bad left no mark; .
its stolidity bad been moved by no feeling. His body was
beavy and sagging. It possessed, Woolfolk recognized, a
considerable, imwieldy strength, and was completely cov-
ered by a variously spotted and streaked apron.

" Are you Nicholas? " John Woolfolk demanded.

Tbe other nodded.

" Then, I take it, you are tbe man who broke my water
cask.'*

" It was full of our water," Nicholas replied in a thick
voice.

" Tbat," said Woolfolk, " I am not going to argue with
you. I came ashore to instruct you to let my man and
my property alone."

" Then leave our water be."

John Woolfolk's temper, tbe instinctive arrogance of
men living apart from tbe necessary submissions of com-
munal life, in positions — however small — of supreme
command, flared through his body.

" I told you," he repeated shortly, " that I would not
discuss tbe question of tbe water. I have no intention

[42]

WILD ORANGES

of justifying myself to you. Remember — your hands
off."

The other said surprisingly: " Don't get me started! "
A spasm of emotion made a faint, passing shade on his
sodden countenance, his voice held almost a note of appeal.

" Whether you * start ' or not is without the slightest
significance," Wodfolk coldly responded.

" Mind," the man went on, " I spc^e first."

A steady twitching commenced in a muscle at the flange
of his nose. Woolfolk was aware of an increasing tension
in the other that gained a peculiar oppressiveness from
the lack of any corresponding outward expression. His
heavy, blunt hand fumbled under the maculate apron; his
chest heaved with a sudden, tempestuous breathing.
" Don't start me," he repeated in a voice so blurred that
the words were hardly recognizable. He swallowed con-
vulsively, his emotion mounting to an inchoate passion,
when suddenly a change was evident. He made a short,
violent effort to regain his self-control, his gaze fastened
on a point behind Woolfolk.

The latter turned and saw Millie Stope approaching^
her countenance haggard with fear. " What has hap-
pened? " she cried breathlessly while yet a little distance
away. " Tell me at once "

" Nothing," Woolfolk promptly replied, appalled by the
agony in her voice. " Nicholas and I had a small mis-
understanding. A triviality," he added, thinking of the
other's hand groping beneath the apron. /

[43]

GOLD AND IRON

VI

On the morning following the breaking of his water
cask John Wodfolk saw the slender figure of Millie on
the beach. She waved and called, her voice coining thin
and clear across the water:

" Are visitors — encouraged? "

He sent Halvard in with the tender, and as they ap-
proached, dropped a gangway over the Gar^s side. She
stepped lightly down into the cockpit with a naive ex-
pression of surprise at the yacht's immaculate order. The
sails lay precisely housed, the stays, freshly tarred, glis-
tened in the sun, the brasswork and newly varnished
mahogany shone, while the mathematically coiled ropes
rested on a deck as spotless as wood could be scraped.

" Why," she exclaimed, " it couldn't be neater if you
were two nice old ladies I "

" I warn you," Wodfolk replied, " Halvard will not
regard that as particularly complimentary. He will assure
you that the order of a proper yacht is beyond the most
ambitious dream of a mere housekeeper."

She laughed as Halvard placed a chair for her. She
was, Woolfolk thought, lighter in spirit on the ketch than
she had been on shore; there was the faintest imaginable
stain on her petal-like cheeks; her eyes, like olive leaves,
were almost gay. She sat with her slender knees crossed,
her fine arms held with hands clasped behind her head,
and dad in a crisply ironed, crude white dress, into the
band of which she had thrust a spray of orange blossoms.

John Woolfolk was increasingly conscious of her pe-

[44]

Wild oranges

culiar charm. Millie Stope, he suddenly realized, was
like the wild oranges in the neglected grove at her door.
A man brought in contact with her magnetic being, charged
with appealing and mysterious emotions, in a setting of
exotic night and black sea, would find other women, the
ordinary concourse of society, insipid — like faintly
sweetened water.

She was entirely at home on the ketch, sitting against the
immaculate rim of deck and the sea. He resented that
familiarity as an unwarranted intrusion of the world he
had fled. Other people, women among them, had un-
avoidably crossed his deck, but they had been patently
alien, momentary; while Millie, with her still delight at
the yacht's compact comfort, her intuitive comprehension
of its various details — the lamps set in gimbals, the china
racks and chart cases slung overhead — entered at once
into the spirit of the craft that was John Woolfolk's sole
place of home.

He was now disturbed by the ease with which she had
established herself both in the yacht and in his imagina-
tion. He had thought, after so many years, to have de-
stroyed all the bonds which ordinarily connect men with
life, when a mere curiosity had grown into a tangible in-
terest, and the interest showed unmistakable signs of be^
coming sympathy.

She smiled at him from her position by the wheel; and
his being responded with such an imaccustomed, ready
warmth that he said abruptly, seeking refuge in occupa-
tion:

" Why not reach out to sea ? The conditions are per-
fect."

[45]

GOLD AND IRON

" Ah, please! " she cried. " Just to take up the anchor
would thrill me for months."

A light west wind was blowing; and deliberate, exactly
spaced rollers, their tops laced with iridescent spray, were
sweeping in from a sea like a glassy, blue pavement.
Woolfolk issued a short order, and the sailor moved for-
ward with his customary smooth swiftness. The sails
were shaken loose, the mainsail slowly spread its dazzling
expanse to the sun, the jib and jigger were trimmed and
the anchor came up with a short rush.

Millie rose with her arms outspread, her chin high and
eyes closed.

" Free! " she proclaimed with a slow, deep breath.

The sails filled and the ketch forged ahead. John
Woolfolk, at the wheel, glanced at the chart section beside
him.

"There's four feet on the bar at low water," he told
Halvard. " The tide's at half flood now."

The Gar increased her speed, slipping easily out of the
bay, gladly, it seemed to Woolfolk, turning toward the
sea. The bow rose, and the ketch dipped forward over
a spent roller. Millie Stope grasped the wheelbox.
" Free! " she said again with shining eyes.

The yacht rose more sharply, hung on a wave's crest
and slid lightly downward. Woolfdk, with a. sinewy,
dark hand directing their course, was intent upon the
swelling sails. Once he stopped, tightening a halyard,
and the sailor said:

" The main peak won't flatten, sir."

The waves grew larger. The Gar climbed their smooth
heights and coasted like a feather beyond. Directly be-

[46]

WILD ORANGES

fore the yacht they were unbroken, but on either. side they
foamed into a silver quickly reabsorbed in the deeper
water within the bar.

Woolfdk turned from his scrutiny of the ketch to his
companion, and was surprised to see her, with all the joy
evaporated from her countenance, clinging rigidly to the
nil. He said to himself, " Seasick." Then he realized
that it was not a physical illness that possessed her, but a
profound, increasing terror. She endeavored to smile back
at his questioning gaze, and said in a small, imcertain
voice:

"It's so— so big!"

For a moment he saw in her a dear resemblance to the
shrinking figure of Lichfield Stope. It was as though
suddenly she had lost her fine profile and become inde-
terminate, shadowy. The grey web of the old deflection
in Virginia extended over her out of the past — of the
past that, Woolfolk thought, would not die.

The Gar rose higher still, dropped into the deep, watery
valley, and the woman's face was drawn and wet, the
back of her straining hand was dead white. Without
further delay John Woolfolk put the wheel sharply over
and told his man, " We're going about." Halvard busied
himself with the shaking sails.

" Really — I'd rather you didn't," Millie gasped. " I
must learn — no longer a child."

But Woolfolk held the ketch on her return course; his
companion's panic was growing beyond her control. They
passed once more between the broken waves and entered
the still bay with its border of flowering earth. There,
when the yacht had been anchored, Millie sat gazing

[47]

GOLD AND IRON

silently at the open sea whose bigness had so unexpectedly
distressed her. Her face was pinched, her mouth set in
a straight, hard line. Something about the latter fea-
ture suggested to Wodfolk the enigmatic governess; it was
in contradiction to the rest.

''How strange/' she said at last in an insuperably
weary voice, " to be forced back to this place that I loathe,
by myself, by my own cowardice. It's exactly as if my
spirit were chained — then the body could never be free.
What is it," she demanded of John Woolfolk, " that lives
in our own hearts and betrays our utmost convictions and
efforts, and destroys us against all knowledge and desire? "

"It may be called heredity," he replied; "that is its
simplest phase. The others extend into the realms of the
fantastic."

" It's unjust," she cried bitterly, " to be condemned to
die in a pit with all one's instinct in the sky I "

The old plea of injustice quivered for a moment over
the water and then died away. John Woolfolk had made
the same passionate protest, he had cried it with clenched
hands at the withdrawn stars, and the profound inat-
tention of Nature had appalled his agony. A thrill of
pity moved him for the suffering woman beside him.
Her mouth was still imrelaxed. There was in her the
material for a struggle against the invidious past.

In her slender frame the rebellion took on an accent
of the heroic. Woolfolk recalled how utterly he had gone
down before mischance. But his case had been extreme,
he had suffered an unendurable wrong at the hand of Fate.
Halv^rd diverted his thoughts by placing before them a
tray of sugared pineapple and symmetrical cakes. Millie,

[48]

WILD ORANGES

too, lost her tension, she showed a feminine pleasure at the
yacht's fine napkins, approved the polish of the glass.

'^ It's all quite wonderful," she said.

" I have nothing else to care for," Woolfolk told her.

" No place nor people on land? "

" None."

" And you are satisfied? "

** Absolutely," he replied With an unnecessary emphasis.
He was, he told himself aggressively; he wanted nothing
more from living and had nothing to give. Yet his pity
for Millie Stope mounted obscurely, bringing with it
thoughts, half-^sensed desires, dim obligations, to which he
had declared himself dead.

" I wonder if you are to be envied? " she queried.

A sudden astounding willingness to speak of himself,
even of the past, swept over him.

" Hardly," hie replied. " All the things that men value
were killed for me in an instant, in the flutter of a white
skirt."

" Can you talk about it? "

'' There's almost nothing to tell; it was so imrelated, so
senseless, blind. It can't be dressed into a story, it has no
moral — no meaning. Well — it was twelve years ago.
I had just been married, and we had gone to a property in
the coimtry. After two days I had to go into town, and
when I came back Ellen met me in a breaking cart. It
was a flag station, buried in maples, with a white road
winding back to where we were staying.

'' Ellen had trouble in holding the horse when the train
left, and the beast shied going from the station. It was
Monday, dotbes hung from a line in a side yard and a

[49]

GOLD AND IRON

skirt fluttered in a little breeze. The horse reared, the
strapped back of the seat broke, and Ellen was thrown —
on her head. It killed her.''

He fell silent Millie breathed sharply, and a ripple
struck with a faint slap on the yacht's side. Then:
" One can't sanction that," he continued in a lower voice,
as if arguing with himself; *' arbitrary, wantcm; impos-
sible to accept such conditions

" She was young," he once more took up the narrative;
"a girl in a tennis skirt with a gay scarf about her
waist — quite dead in a second. The clothes still flut-
tered on the line. You see," he ended, "nothing in-
structive, tragic — only a crude dissonance."

" Then you left everything? "

He failed to answer^ and she gazed with a new under-
standing and interest over the Gar, Her attention was
attracted to the beach, and, following her gaze, John Wool-
folk saw the bulky figure of Nicholas gazing at them from
under his palm. A palpable change, a swift shadow en-
veloped Millie Stope.

" I must go back," she said imeasily; "there will be
dinner, and my father has been alone all morning."

But Woolfolk was certain that, however convincing the
reasons she put forward, it was none of these that was
taking her so hurriedly ashore. The dread that for the
past few hours had almost vanished from her tones, her
gaze, had returned multiplied. It was, he realized, the
objective fear; her entire being was shrinking as if in
anticipation of an imminent calamity, a physical blow.

Woolfolk iiimself put her on the beach; and, with the
tender canted on the sand, steadied her spring. As her

[SO]

WILD ORANGES

hand rested an his arm it gripped him with a sharp force;
a response pulsed through his body; and an involuntary
color rose in her pale, fine cheeks.

Nicholas, stolidly set with his shoes half buried in the
sand, surveyed them without a shade of feeling on his
thick countenance. But Wodfolk saw that the other's
fingers were crawling toward his pocket. He realized
that the man's dully smiling mask concealed sultry, un-
governed emotions, blind springs of gall.

VII

Again on the ketch the inevitable reaction overtook him.
He had spoken of Ellen's death to no one until now,
through all the years when he had been a wanderer on
the edge of his world, and he bitterly regretted mentioning
it. In speaking he had betrayed his resolve of solitude.
Life, against all his instinct, his wishes, had reached out
and caught him, however lightly, in its tentacles.

The least surrender, he realized, the slightest opening of
his interest, would bind him with a multitude of attach-
ments; the octopus that he dreaded, uncoiling arm after
arm, would soon hold him again, a helpless victim for the
fury Chance.

He had made a disastrous error in following his cu-
riosity, the insistent scent of the wild oranges, to the house
where Millie had advanced on the dim portico. His re-
turn there had been the inevitable result of the first mis-
take, and the rest had followed with a fatal ease. What-
ever had been the deficiences of the past twelve years he
had been free from new complications, fresh treacheries.

[SI]

GOLD AND IRON

Now, with hardly a struggle, he was falling back into
the trap.

The wind died away absolutely, and a haze gathered
delicately over the sea, thickening through the afternoon
and turned rosy by the declining sun. The shore had
faded from sight.

A sudden energy leaped through John Woolfolk, rang
out in an abrupt sununons to Halvard. " Get up anchor,"
he commanded.

Foul Halvard, at the mainstay, remarked tentatively:
" There's not a capful of wind."

The wide calm, Woolfolk thought, was but a part of a
general conspiracy against his liberty, his memories.
" Get the anchor up," he repeated harshly. " Well go
imder the engine." The sudden jarring of the Gat's en-
gine sounded mufSed in a shut space like the flushed heart
of a shell. The yacht moved forward, with a wake like
folded gauze, into a shimmer of formless and pure color.

John Woolfolk sat at the wheel, motionless e:2^cept for
an occasional, scant shifting of his hands. He was sail-
ing by compass; the patent log, trailing behind on its long
cord, maintained a constant, jerking register on its dial.
He had resolutely banished all thought save that of navi-
gation. Halvard was occupied forward, clearing the
deck of the accumulations of the anchorage. When he
came aft Woolfolk said shortly: "No mess."

The haze deepened and night fell, and the sailor lighted
and placed the port and starboard lights^ The binnacle
lamp threw up a dim, orange radiance. on Woolfolk's
somber countenance. He continued for three and four
and then five hours at the wheel, while the smooth clamor

[52]

WILD ORANGES

of the engine, a slight quiver of the hull, alone marked
their progress through an invisible element.

Once more he had left life behind. This had more the
aspect of a flight than at any time previous. It was,
obscurely, an impleasant thought, and he endeavored —
unsuccessfully — to put it from him. He was but pur-
suing the course he had laid out, following his necessaiy,
inflexible determination.

His mind for a moment turned independently back to
Millie, with her double burden of fear. He had left her
without a word, isolated with Nicholas, concealing with a
blank smile his enigmatic being, and with her impotent
parent.

Well, he was not responsible for her, he had paid for the
privilege of immunity; he had but listened to her story,
volunteering nothing. John Woolfolk wished, however,
that he had said some final, useful word to her before
going. He was certain that, looking for the ketch and
unexpectedly finding the bay empty, she would suffer a
pang, if only of loneliness. In the short while that he had
been there she had come to depend on him for compan-
ionship, for relief from the insuperable monotony of her
surroundings; for, perhaps, still more. He wondered
what that more might contain. He thought of Millie at
the present moment, probably lying awake, steeped in
dread. His flight now assumed the aspect of an act of
cowardice, of desertion. He rehearsed wearily the extenu-
ations of his position, but without any palpable relief.

An even more disturbing possibility lodged in his
thoughts — he was not certain that he did not wish to be
actually back with Millie again. He felt the quick pres-

1531

GOLD AND IRON

sure of her fingers on his arm as she jumped from the
tender; her magnetic personality hung about him like an
aroma. Cloaked in mystery, pale and irresistible, she
appealed to him f rcnn the edge of the wild oranges.

This, he told himself again, was but the manner in
which a ruthless Nature set her lures; it was the deceptive
vestment of romance. He held the ketch relentlessly on
her course, with — now — all this thoughts, his inclina-
tions, returning to Millie Stope. In a final, desperate
rally of his scattering resolution he told himself that he
was imfaithful to the tragic memory of Ellen. This last
stay broke abruptly, and left him defenseless against the
tyranny of his mounting desires. Strangely he felt the
sudden pressure of a stirring wind upon his face; and,
almost with an oath, he put the wheel sharply over and
the Gar swung about

Poul Halvard had been below, by inference asleep; but
when the yacht changed her course he immediately ap-
peared on deck, He moved aft, but Woolfolk made no
explanation, the sailor put no questions. The wind
freshened, grew sustained. Woolfolk said:

"Make sail."

Soon after the mainsail rose, a ghostly white expanse on
the night. John Woolfolk trimmed the jigger, shut off the
engine; and, moving through a sudden, vast hush, they
retraced their course. The bay was ablaze with sunlight,
the morning well advanced, when the ketch floated back
to her anchorage under the oleanders.

[54]

WILD ORANGES

VIII

Whether he returned or fled^ Woolfolk thought, he was
enveloped in an atmosphere of defeat. He relinquished
the wheel, but remained seated, drooping at his post
The indefatigable Halvard proceeded with the efficient
discharge of his narrow, exacting duties. After a short
space John Woolfolk descended to the cabin, where, on an
unmade berth, he fell immediately asleep.

He woke to a dim interior and twilight gathering out-
side. He shaved — ^ without conscious purpose — with
meticulous care, and put on the blue flannel coat. Later
he rowed himself ashore and proceeded directly through
the orange grove to the house beyond.

Millie Stope was seated on the portico, ^md laid a
restraining hand on her father's arm as he rose, attempting
to retreat at Woolf oik's approach. The latter, with a
commonplace greeting, resumed his place.

Millie's face was dim and potent in the gloom, and Lich-
field Stope more Aan ever resembled an imeasy ghost.
He muttered an indistinct response to a period directed at
him by Woolfolk and turned with a low, urgent appeal to
his daughter. The latter, with a hopeless gesture, relin-
quished his arm, and the other disappeared as if by magic.

"You were sailing this morning," Millie commented
listlessly.

" I had gone,** he said without explanation. Then he
added: "But I came back."

A silence threatened them which he resolutely broke:
" Do you remember, when you told me about your father,

[55]

GOLD AND IRON

that you wanted really to talk about yourself? Will you
do that now?"

" Tonight I haven't the courage."

*' I am not idly curious," he persisted^

" Just what are you ? "

" I don't know," he admitted frankly. ** At the present
moment I'm lost, fogged. But, meanwhile, I'd like to give
you aay assistaace in my power. You seem, in a mys-
terious way, needful of help."

She turned her head sharply in the direction of the open
hall and said in a high, dear voice, that yet rang strangely
false: " I am quite well cared for by my father and
Nicholas." She moved closer to him, dragging her chair
across the uneven porch, in the rasp of which she added,
quick and low:

" Don't — please."

A mounting exasperation seized him at the secrecy that
veiled her, hid her from him, and he answered stifSy : '' I
am merely intrusive."

She was seated above him, and she leaned forward and
swiftly pressed his fingers, loosely clasped about a knee.
Her hand was as cold as salt. His irritation vanished
before a welling pity. He got now a sharp, recognized
happiness from her nearness; his feeling for her increased
with the accumulating seconds. After the surrender, the
admission, of his return he had grown elemental, sensi-
tized to emotions rather than to processesi of intellect His
ardor had the poignancy of the period beyond youth.
It had a trace of tiie consciousness of t^e fatal waning of
life which gave it a depth denied to younger passions.
He wished to take Millie Stope at once from all memory

[56]

WILD ORANGES

of ihe troublous past, to have her alone in a totally
different and thrilling existence.

It was a personal and blind desire, bom in the un-
accustomed tumult of his newly released feelings.

They sat for a long while, silent or speaking in triviali-
ties, when he proposed a walk to the sea; but she de-
clined in that curiously loud and false tone. It seemed
to Woolfolk that, for the moment, she had addressed
someone not immediately present; and involuntarily he
looked around. The light of the hidden lamp "in the hall
fell in a pale, unbroken rectangle on the irregular porch.
There was not the shifting of a pound's wei^t audible
in the stillness.

Millie breathed unevenly; at times he saw she shiv-
ered uncontrollably. At this his feeling mounted be-
yond all restraint. He said, taking her cold hand:
" I didn't tell you why I went last night — it was be-
cause I was afraid to stay where you were; I was
afraid of the change you were bringing about in my
life. That's all over now, I "

"Isn't it quite late?" she interrupted him imcom-
fortably. She rose and her agitation visibly increased.

He was abcHit to force her to hear all that he must
say, but he stopped at the mute wretchedness of her
pallid face. He stood gazing up at her from the rough
sod. She clenched her hands, her breast heaved sharply,
and she spoke in a level, strained voice:

" It would have been better if you had gone -— without
coming back. My father is unhappy with anyone about
except myself and — and Nicholas. You see — he will
not stay on the porch nor walk about his grounds. I am

[57]

GOLD AND IRON

not in need of assistance, as you seem to think. And
— thank you. Good night."

He stood without moving, his head thrown back, re-
garding her with a searching frown. He listened again,
unconsciously, and thought he heard the low creaking of
a board from within. It could be nothing but the un-
easy peregrination of Lichfield Stope. The sound was
repeated, grew louder, and the sagging bulk of Nicholas
appeared in the doorway.

The latter stood for a moment, a dark, magnified shape;
and then, moving across the portico to the farthest win-
dow, dosed the shutters. The hinges gave out a rasping
grind, as if they had not been turned for months, and there
was a faint rattle of falling particles of rusted iron.
The man forced shut a second set of shutters with a
sudden vidence and went slowly back into the house.
Millie Stope said once more:

" Good night."

It was evident to Woolfolk that he could gain nothing
more at present; and stifling an angry protest, an impa-
tient troop of questions, he turned and strode back to the
tender. However, he hadn't the slightest intention of
following Millie's indirectly expressed wish for him to
leave. He had the odd conviction that at heart she did
not want him to go; the evening, he elaborated this feel-
ing, had been all a strange piece of acting. Tomorrow
he would tear apart the veil that hid her from him; he
would ignore her every protest and force the truth from her.

He lifted the tender's anchor from the sand and pulled
sharply across the water to the Gar, A reddish, misshapen
moon hung in the east, and when he had mounted to

[58]

WILD ORANGES

his deck it was suddenly obscured by a high, racing scud
of doud; the air had a damper, thicker feel. He in-
stinctively moved to the barometer, which he found de-
pressed. The wind, that had continued steadily since
the night before, increased, and there was a corresponding
stir among the branches ashore, a slapping of the yacht's
cordage against the spars. He turned forward and half
absently noted the increasing strain on the hawser dis-
appearing into the dark tide. The anchor was firmly
bedded. The pervasive, far mumiur of the waves on
the outer bars grew louder.

The yacht swung lightly over the choppy water, and
a strong affection for the ketch that had been his home,
his occupation, his solace through the past dreary years
expanded his heart. He knew the Gar's every capability
and mood, and they were all good. She was an excep-
tional boat. His feeling was acute, for he knew that
the yacht had been superseded. It was already an de-
ment of the past, of that past in which Ellen lay dead
in a tennis skirt, with a bright scarf abcHit her young
waist.

He placed his hand on the mainmast, in the manner in
which another might drop a palm on the shoulder of a
departing, faithful companion, and the wind in the rig-
ging vibrated through the wood like a sentient and affec-
tionate response. Then he went resolutely down into
the cabin, facing the future.

John Woolfolk woke in the night, listened for a mo-
ment to the straining hull and wind shrilling aloft^ and
then rose and went forward again to examine the mooring.
A second hawser now reached into the darkness. Halvard

[59]

GOLD AND IRON

had been on deck and put out another anchor. The
wind beat salt and stinging from the sea, utterly dissipat-
ing the languorous breath of the land, the odors of the
exotic, flowering trees.

DC

In the morning a storm, driving out of the east, envel-
oped the coast in a frigid, lashing rain. The wind
mounted steadily through the middle of the day with
an increasing pitch accompanied by the basso of the
racing seas. The bay grew opaque and seamed with
white scars. After the meridian the rain ceased, but
the wind maintained its volume, clamoring beneath a
leaden pall.

John Woolfolk, in dripping yellow oilskins, occasion-
ally circled the deck of his ketch. Halvard had every-
thing in a perfection of order. When the rain stopped,
the sailor dropped into the tender and with a boat sponge
bailed vigorously. Soon after, Woolfolk stepped out
upon the beach. He was without any plan but the de-
termination to put aside whatever obstacles held Millie
from him. This rapidly cr3^tallized into the resolve to
take her with him before another day ended. His feel-
ing for her, increasing to a passionate need, had de-
stroyed the suspension, the deliberate calm of his life, as
the storm had dissipated the simny peace of the coast

He paused before the ruined fagade, weighing her
statement that it would have been better if he had not
returned; and he wondered how that would affect her
willingness, her ability to see him today. He added

[60]

• WILD ORANGES

the word ^^ ability '^ instinctively and without explana-
tion. And he decided that, in order to have any satis^
factory speech with her, he must come upon her alone,
away from the house. Then he could force her to hear
to the finish what he wanted to say; in the open they
might escape from the inexplicable inhibition that lay
upon her expression of feeling, of desire. It would be
necessary, at the same time, to avoid the notice of any-
one who would warn her of his presence. This precluded
his waiting at the familiar place on the rotting wharf.

Three marble steps, awry and moldy, descended to the
lawn from a French window in the side of the desolate
mansion. They were screened by a tangle of rose-mal-
low, and there John Woolfolk seated himself — waiting.

The wind shrilled about the comer of the house, there
was a mournful datter of shingles from above and the
frenzied lashing of boughs. The noise was so great that
he failed to hear the slightest indication of the approach
of Nicholas until that individual passed directly before
him. Nicholas stopped at the inner fringe of the beach
and, from a point where he could not be seen fnnn the
ketch, stood gazing out at the Gat pounding on her long
anchor chains. The man remained for an oppressively
extended period; Woolfolk could see his heavy, drooping
shoulders and sunken head; and then the other moved to
the left, crossing the rough open behind the oleanders.
Woolfolk had a momentary glimpse of a huge nose and
rapidly moving lips above an impotent chin.

Nicholas, he realized, remained a complete enigma to
him; beyond the conviction that the man was, in sonie
minor way, leaden-witted, he knew nothing.

[6U

GOLD AND IRON

A brief, watery ray of sunlight fell through a rift in
the flying clouds and stained the tossing foliage pale
gold; it was followed by a sudden drift of rain, then
once more the naked wind. Woolfolk was fast deter-
mining to go up to the house and insist upon Millie's
hearing him, when unexpectedly she appeared in a som-
ber, fluttering cloak, with her head uncovered and hair
blown back from her pale brow. He waited until she
had passed him, and then rose, softly calling her name.

She stopped and turned, with a hand pressed to her
heart. "I was afraid you'd gone out," she told him.
" The sea is like a pack of wolves." , Her voice was a
low complexity of relief and fear.

"Not alone," he replied; "not without you."

"Madness," she murmured, gathering her wavering
doak about her breast. She swayed, graceful as a reed
in the wind, charged with potency. He made an involun-
tary gesture toward her with his arms; but in a sudden
access of fear she eluded him.

"We must talk," he told her. "There is a great
deal that needs explaining, that — I think — I have a
right to know, the right of your dependence on s(»nething
to save you from yourself. There is another right, but
only you can give that "

" Indeed," she interrupted tensely, " you mustn't stand
here talking to me."

" I shall allow nothing to interrupt us," he returned
decidedly. " I have been long enough in the dark."

" But you don't understand what you will, perhaps,
bring on yourself — on me."

" I'm forced to ignore even that last."

[62]

WILD ORANGES

She glanced hurriedly about. "Not here then, if you
must."

She walked from him, toward the second ruined pile
that fronted the bay. The steps to the gaping entrance
had rotted away and they were forced to mount an inse-
cure side piece. The interior, as Woolfolk had seen, was
composed of one high room, while, above, a narrow, open
second story hung like a ledge. On both sides were long
counters with mounting sets of shelves behind them.

" This was the store," Millie told him. " It was a
great estate."

A dim and moldering fragment of cotton stuff was hang-
ing from a forgotten bolt; above, some tinware was eaten
with rust; a scale had crushed in the floor and lay
broken on the earth beneath; and a ledger, its leaves
a single, sodden film of grey, was still open on a counter.
A precarious stair mounted to the flooring above, and
Millie Stope made her way upward, followed by Wool-
folk.

There, in the double gloom of the clouds and a small
dormer window obscured by cobwebs, she sank on a
broken box. The insane building shook perilously in the
blasts of the wind. Below they could see the empty floor,
and through the doorway the somber, gleaming greenery
without.

All the patient expostulation that John Wodfolk had
prepared disappeared in a sudden tyranny of emotion, of
hunger for the slender, weary figure before him. Seat-
ing himself at her side, he burst into a torrential ex-
pression of passionate desire that mounted with the tide
of his eager words. He caught her hands, held them in

[63]

GOLD AND IRON

a painful grip, and gazed down into her still, frightened
face. He stopped abruptly, was silent for a tempestuous
moment, and then baldly repeated the fact of his love.

Millie Stope said: '

"I know so little about the love you mean." Her
voice trailed to silence; and in a lull of the storm they
heard the thin patter of rats on the floor below, the stir
of bats among the rafters.

" It's quickly learned," he assured her. " Millie, do
you fed any response at all in your heart — the slight-
est return of my longing? "

" I don't know," she answered, turning toward him
a troubled scrutiny. *^ Perhaps in another surrounding,
with things different, I might care for you very
much "

'* I am going to take you into that other surrounding,"
he announced.

She ignored his interruption. '' But we shall never
have a chance to learn." She silenced his attempted pro-
test with a cool, flexible palm against his mouth. " Life,"
she continued, " is so dreadfully in the dark. One is
lost at the beginning. There are maps to take you safely
to the Guianas, but none for souls. Perhaps religions

are Again I don't know. I have found notiiing

secure — only a whirlpool into which I will not drag
others."

" I will drag you out," he asserted.

She smiled at him, in a momentary tenderness, and
continued: ''When I was young I never doubted that
I would conquer life. I pictured myself rising in triumph
over circumstance, as a gull leaves the sea. . . . When I

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WILD ORANGES

was young ... If I was afraid of the dark then I
thought, of course, I would outgrow it; but it has grown
deeper than my courage. The night is terrible now." A
shiver passed over her.

" You are ill," he insisted, " but you shall be cured."

"Perhaps, a year ago, something might have been
done, with assistance; yes — with you. Then, whatever
is, hadn't materialized. Why did you delay? " she cried
in a sudden suffering.

" You'll go with me tonight," he declared stoutly.

"In this?" She indicated the wind beating with
the blows of a great fist against the swaying walls of the
demolished store. "Have you seen the sea? Do you
remember what happened on the day I went with you
when it was so beautiful and still? "

John Woolfolk realized, wakened to a renewed mental
clearness by the threatening of all that he desired, that
— as Millie had intimated — life was too ccanplicated to
be solved by a simple longing; love was not the all-
powerful magician of conventional acceptance; there were
other, no less profound, depths.

He resolutely abandoned his mere inchoate wanting,
and considered the elements of the position that were
known to him. There was, in the first place, that old,
lamentable dereliction of Lichfield Stope's, and its after-
math in his daughter. Millie had just recalled to Wool-
folk the duration, the activity, of its poison. Here there
was no possibility of escape by mere removal; the stain
was within; and it must be thoroughly cleansed before
she could cope successfully, happily, with life. In this, he
was forced to acknowledge, he could help her but little;

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GOLD AND IRON

it was an affair of spirit; and spiritual values — though
they might be supported f rcMn without — had their growth
and decrease strictly in the individual they animated.

Still, he argued, a normal existence, a sense of secur-
ity, would accomplish much; and they hung upon the
elimination of the second, unknown element — the reason
for her backward glances, her sudden, loud banalities,
yesterday's mechanical repudiation of his offered assist-
ance and the implied wish for him to go. He said
gravely:

" I have been impatient, but you came so sharply into
my empty existence that I was upset. If you are ill you
can cure yourself. Never forget your mother's 'brave
heart.' But there is something objective, immediate,
threatening you. Tell me what it is, Millie, and to-
gether we wiU overcome and put it away from you for-
ever."

She gazed panic-stricken into the empty gloom be-
low. "No! no!" she exclaimed, rising. "You don't
know. I won't drag you down. You must go away at
once, tonight, even in the storm."

" What is it? " he demanded.

She stood rigidly erect with her eyes shut and hands
clasped at her sides. Then she slid down upon the
box, lifting to him a white mask of fright.

" It's Nicholas," she said, hardly above her breath.

A sudden relief swept over John Woolfolk. In his
mind he dismissed as negligible the heavy man fumbling
beneath his soiled apron. He wondered how the other
could have got such a grip on Millie Stope's imagina-
tion.

[66]

I

.<

WILD ORANGES

The mystery that had enveloped her was fast dis-
appearing, leaving them without an obstacle to the hap-
piness he proposed. Woolfolk said curtly:

"Has Nicholas been annoying you?"

She shivered, with clasped, straining hands.

"He says he's crazy about me," she tdd him in a
shuddering voice that contracted his heart. "He says

that I must — must marry him, or " Her period

trailed abruptly out to silence.

Woolfolk grew animated with determination, an im-
mediate purpose.

"Where would Nicholas be at this hour? " he asked.

She rose hastily, clinging to his arm. " You mustn't,"
she exclaimed, yet not loudly. "You don't know! He
is watching — something frightful would happen."

" Nothing * frightful,' " he returned tolerantly, pre-
paring to descend. " Only unfortunate for Nicholas."

"You mustn't," she repeated desperately, her sheer
weight hanging from her hands clasped about his neck.
"Nicholas is not — not human. There's something
funny about him. I don't mean funny, I "

He unclasped her fingers and quietly forced her back to
the seat on the box. Then he took a place at her side.

"Now," he asked reasonably, "what is this about
Nicholas?"

She glanced down into the desolate cavern of the
store; the ghostly remnant Of cotton goods fluttered in
a draft like a torn and grimy cobweb; the lower floor
was palpably bare.

" He came in April," she commenced in a voice with-
out any life, "The woman we had had for years was

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GOLD AND IRON

dead; and when Nicholas asked for work we were glad
to take him. He wanted the smallest possible wages and
was willing to do everything; he even cooked quite nicely.
At first he was jumpy — he had asked if many strangers
went by; but then when no one appeared he got easier . . .
He got easier and began to do extra things for me. I
thanked him — until I understood. Then I asked father
to send him away, but he was afraid; and, before I
could get up my courage to do it, Nicholas spoke

" He said he was crazy about me, and would I please
try and be good to him. He had always wanted to
marry, he went on, and live right, but things had gone
against him. I told him that he was impertinent and
that he would have to go ^^t once; but he cried and begged
me not to say that, not to get him * started.' "

That, John Woolfolk recalled, was precisely what the
man had said to him.

" I went back to father and told him why he must
send Nicholas off, but father nearly suffocated. He
turned almost black. Then I got frightened and locked
myself in my room, while Nicholas sat out on the stair
and sobbed all night. It was ghastly I In the morn-
ing I had to go down, and he went about his duties as
usual. That evening he spoke again, on the porch, twist-
ing his hands exactly as if he were making bread. He
repeated that he wanted me to be nice to him. He said
something wrong would happen if I pushed him to it.

" I think if he had threatened to kill me it would
have been more possible than his hints and sobs. The
thing drew out to a month, then six weeks, and nothing
more happened. I started again and again to tell them

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WILD ORANGES

at the store, two miles back in the pines, but I could
never get away from Nicholas; he was always at my shoul-
der, muttering and twisting his hands.

"Then I found something." She hesitated, glancing
once more down through the empty gloom, while her
fingers swiftly fumbled in the band of her waist.

" I was cleaning his room — it simply had to be done

— and had out a bureau drawer, when I saw this un-
derneath. He was not in the house, and I took one look
at it, then put the things back as near as possible as they
were. I was so frightened that I slipped it in my dress

— had no chance to return it."

He took from her unresisting hand a folded rectangle
of coarse grey paper; and, opening it, found a small hand-
bill with the crudely reproduced photograph of a man's
head with a long, drooping nose, sleepy eyes in thick
folds of flesh, and a laz underlip with a fixed, dull
smile: >

Wanted for Murder!

The authorities of Coweta offer Three Hun-
dred Dollars for the apprehension of the be-
low, Iscah Nicholas, convicted of the murder of
Elizabeth Slakto, an aged woman.

General description: Age about forty-eight.
Head receding, with large nose and stupid ex-
pression. Body corpulent but strong. Nicho-
las has no trade and works at general utility.
He is a homicidal maniac.

Wanted tor Murder!
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GOLD AND IRON

"He told me that his name was Nicholas Brandt,"
Millie noted in her dull voice.

A new gravity possessed John Woolfolk.

" You must not go back to the house," he decided

" Wait," she replied. " I was terribly frightened when
he went up to his room. When he came down he thanked
me for cleaning it. I tdd him he was mistaken, that I
hadn't been in there, but I could see he was suspicious.
He cried all the time he was cooking dinner, in a queer,
choked way; and afterward touched me — on the arm.
I swam, but all the water in the bay wouldn't take away
the fed of his fingers. Then I saw the boat — you came
ashore.

" Nicholas was dreadfully upset, and hid in the pines
for a day or more. He told me if I spoke of him it
would happen, and if I left it would happen — to father.
Then he came back. He said that you were — were in
love with me, and that I must send you away. He added
that you must go away today, for he couldn't stand
waiting any more. He said that he wanted to be right,
but that things were against him. This morning he got
dreadful — if I fooled him he'd get you, and me, too, and
then there was always father for s(»nething special extra.
That, he warned me, would happen if I stayed away for
more than an hour." She rose, trembling violently.
" Perhaps it's been an hour now. I must go back."

John Woolfolk thought rapidly; his face was grim. If
he had brought a pistol from the ketch he would have shot
Iscah Nicholas without hesitation. Unarmed, he was
reluctant to predpitate a crisis with such serious possibili-

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WILD ORANGES

ties. He could secure one from the Gar, but even that
short lapse of time might prove fatal — to Millie or
Lichfield Stope. Millie's story was patently fact in every
detail. He thought more rapidly still — desperately.

" I must go back/' she repeated, her words lost in a
sudden blast of wind under the dilapidated roof.

He saw that she was right.

" Very well," he acquiesced. " Tdl him that you saw
me, and that I promised to go tonight. Act quietly; say
that you have been upset, but that you will give him an
answer tcmanxm. Then at eight o'clock — it will be
dark early tonight — walk out to the wharf. That is
all. But it must be done without any hesitation; you
must be even cheerful, kinder to him."

He was thinking: she must be out of the way when
I meet Nicholas. She must not be subjected to the
ordeal that will release her f n»n the dread fast crushing
her spirit.

She swayed, and he caught her, held her upright,
circled in his steady arms.

** Don't let him hurt us," she gasped. " Oh, don't! "

" Not now," he reassured her. " Nicholas is finished.
But you must help by doing exactly as I have told you.
You'd better go on. It won't be long, hardly three hours,
until freedcMn."

She laid her cold cheek against his face, while her
arms crept round his neck. She said nothing; and he held
her to him with a sudden throb of feeling. They stood
for a moment in the deepening gloom, bound in a strain-
ing embrace, while the rats gnawed in the crazy walls of

[71]

GOLD AND IRON

the store and the stonn thrashed without. Then she te-
luctantly descended the stair, crossed the broken floor
and disappeared through the gap of the door.

A sudden unwillingness to have her return alone to
the sobbing menace of Iscah Nicholas, the impotent wraith
that had been Lichfield Stope, carried him in an impetu-
ous stride to the stair. But there he halted. The plan he
had evolved held, in its simplicity, a larger measure of
safety than any immediate, imconsidered course.

John Woolfolk waited until she had had time to enter
the orange grove, then he followed, turning toward the
beach.

He found Halvard already at the sand's edge, waiting
uneasily with the tender, and they crossed the broken
water to where the Gar^s cabin flung out a remote, peace-
ful light

X

The sailor immediately set about his familiar, homely
tasks, while Woolfolk made a minute inspection of the
ketch's rigging. He descended to supper with an ex-
pression of abstraction, and ate mechanically whatever
was placed before him. Afterward he rolled a cigarette,
which he neglected to light, and sat motionless, chin on
breast, in the warm stillness.

Halvard cleared the table and John Woolfolk roused
himself. He turned to the shelf that ran above the
berths and secured a small, locked tin box. For an hour
or more he was engaged alternately writing and care-
fully reading various papers sealed with vermilion wafers.
Then he called Halvard.

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WILD ORANGES

" I'll get you to witness these signatures," he said,
rising. Poul Halvard hesitated; then, with a furrowed
brow, clumsily grasped the pen. " Here," Woolfolk in-
dicated. The man wrote slowly, linking fortuitously
the unsteady letters of his name. This arduous task ac-
complished, he immediately rose. John Woolfolk again
took his place, turning to address the other, when he saw
that one side of Halvard's face was bluish and rapidly
swelling.

" What's the matter with your jaw? " he promptly in-
quired.

Halvard avoided his gaze, obviously reluctant to speak,
but Woolfdk's silent interrogation was insistent. Then:

" I met that Nicholas," Halvard admitted; " without a
knife."

"Well?" Woolfolk insisted.

"There's something wrong with this cursed place,"
Halvard said defiantly. " You can laugh, but there's a
matter in the air that's not natural. My grandmother
could have named it. She heard the ravens that called
ToUfsen's death, and read Linga's eyes before she
strangulated herself. Anyhow, when you didn't come
back I got doubtful and took the tender in. Then I saw
Nitholas beating up through the bushes, hiding here and
there, and doubling through the grass; so I came on him
from the back and — and kicked him, quite sudden.

" He went on his hands, but got up quick for a hulk
like himself. Sir, this is hard to believe, but it's Biblical
— he didn't take any more notice of the kick than if it
had been a flag halyard brushed against him. He said
* Go away,' and waved his foolish hands.

[73]

GOLD AND IRON

" I closed in, still careful of the knife, with a remark,
and got onto his heart He only coughed and kept telling
me in a crying whisper to go away. Nicholas pushed me
back — that's how I got this face. What was the use?
I might as well have hit a pudding. Even talk didn't
move him. In a little it sent me cold." He stopped ab-
ruptly, grew sullen; it was evident that he would say no
more in that direction. Woolfolk opened another subject:

"Life, Halvard," he said, "is uncertain; perhaps to-
night I shall find it absolutely unreliable. What I am
getting at is this: if anything happens to me — death, to be
accurate — the Gar is yours, the ketch and a sum of
money. It is secured to you in this box, which you will
deliver to my address in Boston. There is another provi-
sion that I'll mention merely to give you the opportunity
to repeat it verbally from my lips: the bulk of an3^ing I
have, in the possibility we are considering, will go to a
Miss Stope, the daughter of Lichfield Stope, formerly of
Virginia." He stood up. "Halvard," Woolfolk said
abruptly, extending his hand, expressing for the first time
his repeated thought, "you are a good man. You are
the only steady quantity I have ever known. I have paid
you for a part of this, but the most is beyond dollars.
That I am now acknowledging."

Halvard was cruelly embarrassed. He waited, obvi-
ously desiring a chance to retreat, and Woolfolk con-
tinued in a different vein:

" I want the canvas division rigged across the cabin and
three berths made. Then get the yacht ready to go out
at any time."

One thing more remained; and, going deeper into the

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WILD ORANGES

tin haz, John Woolfolk brought out a packet of square
envelopes addressed to him in a faded, angular hand.
They were all that remained now of his youth, of the
past. Not a ghost, not a remembered fragrance nor accent,
rose from the delicate paper. They had been the property
of a man dead twelve years ago, slain by incomprehensi-
ble mischance; and the man in the contracted cabin, vibrat-
ing from the elemental and violent forces without, forebore
to open them. He burned the packet to a blackish ash
on a plate.

It was, he saw from the chronometer, seven o'clock; and
he rose charged with tense energy, engaged in activities
of a far different order. He unwrapped from many folds
of oiled silk a flat, amorphous pistol, uglier in its bleak
outline than the familiar weapons of more graceful days;
and, sliding into place a filled cartridge dik, he threw
a load into the barrel. This he deposited in the pocket
of a black wool jacket, closely buttoned about his long,
hard body, and went up on deck.

Halvard, in a glistening, yellow coat, came dose up to
him, speaking with the wind whipping the words from his
lips. He said: " She's ready, sir."

For a moment Woolfolk made no answer; he stood
gazing anxiously into the dark that envdoped and hid
Millie Stope from him. There was another darkness
about her, thicker than the mere night, like a black cere-
ment dropping over her soul. His eyes narrowed as he
replied to the sailor:

"Good!"

[75]

GOLD AND IRON

XI

John Woolfblk peered through the night toward the
land.

" Put me ashore beyond the point," he told Halvard;
" at a half-sunk wharf on the sea."

The sailor secured the tender; and, dropping into it,
held the small boat steady while Woolfolk followed.
With a vigorous push they fell away from the Gar. Hal-
yard's oars struck the water smartly and forced the tender
forward into the beating wind. They made a choppy
passage to the rim of the bay, where, turning, they fol-
lowed the thin, pale glimmer of the broken water on the
land's edge. Halvard pulled with short, telling strokes,
his oarblades stirring into momentary being livid blurs
of phosphorescence.

John Woolfolk guided the boat about the point where
he had first seen Millie swimming. He recalled how
strange her unexpected appearance had seemed. It had,
however, been no stranger than the actuality which had
driven her into the bay in the effort to cleanse the stain of
Iscah Nicholas' touch. Woolf oik's face hardened; he
was suddenly conscious of the cold weight in his pocket
He realized that he would kill Nicholas at the first op-
portunity and without the slightest hesitation.

The tender passed about the point, and he could
hear more clearly the sullen clamor of the waves on the
seaward bars. The patches of green sky had grown larger,
the clouds swept by with the apparent menace of solid,
flying objects. The land lay in a low, formless mass on

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WILD ORANGES

. the left It appeared secretive, a masked place of evil.
Its influence reached out and subtly touched John Wool-
folk's heart with the premonition of base treacheries.
The tormented trees had the sound of Iscah Nicholas
sobbing. He must take Millie away immediately; banish
its last memory from her mind, its influence from her
soul. It was the latter he always feared, which formed
bis greatest hazard — to tear from her the invidious ten-
drils of the blighting past.

The vague outline of the ruined wharf swam forward,
and the tender slid into the comparative quiet of its par-
tial protection.

" Make fast,** Woolfolk directed. " I shall be out of
the boat for a while." He hesitated; then: "Miss
Stope will be here; and if, after an hour, you hear noth-
ing from me, take her out to the ketch for the night. In-
sist on her going. If you hear nothing from me still, make
the first town and report."

He mounted by a cross pinning to the insecure surface
above; and, picking his way to solid earth, waited. He
struck a match and, covering the light with his palm, saw
that it was ten minutes before eight. Millie, he had
thought, would reach the wharf before the hour he had
indicated. She would not at any cost be late.

The night was impenetrable. Halvard was as ab-
solutely lost as if he had dropped, with all the world save
the bare, wpt spot where Woolfolk stood, into a nether
region from which floated up great, shuddering gasps of
agony. He followed this idea more minutely, picturing
the details of such a terrestrial calamity, then he put it
from him with an oath. Black thoughts crept insidiously

[77]

GOLD AND IRON

into his mind like rats in a cellar. He had ordinarily
a rigidly disciplined brain, an incisive logic, and he was
disturbed by the distorted visions that came to him un-
hid. He wished, in a momentary panic, instantly sup-
pressed, that he was safely away with Millie in the ketch.

He was becoming hysterical, he told himself with com-
pressed lips — no better than Lichfield Stope. The latter
rose greyly in his memory, and fled across the sea, a
phantom body pulsing with a veined fire like that stirred
from the nocturnal bay. He again consulted his watch,
and said aloud, incredulously: "Five minutes past
eight." The inchoate crawling of his thoughts changed
to an acute, tangible doubt, a mounting dread.

He rehearsed the details of his plan, tried it at every
turning. It had seemed to him at the moment of its evolv-
ing the best — no, the only — thing to do, and it was still
without obvious fault. Some trivial happening, an un-
foreseen need of her father's, had delayed Millie for a
minute or two. But the minutes increased and she did
not appear. All his conflicting emotions merged into
a cold passion of anger. He would kill Nicholas with-
out a word's preliminary. The time drew out, Millie did
not materialize, and his anger sank to the realizaticm of
appalling possibilities.

He decided that he would wait no longer. In the act of
moving forward he thought he heard, rising thinly against
the fluctuating wind, a sudden cry. He stopped auto-
matically, listening with every nerve, but there was no
repetition of the uncertain sound. As Woolfolk swiftly
considered it he was possessed by the feeling that he had
not heard the cry with his actual ear but with a deeper,

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WILD ORANGES

more unaccountable sense. He went forward in a blind
rushy feeling with extended hands for the opening in the
tangle, groping a stumbling way through the close dark
of the matted trees. He fell over an exposed root, blun-
dered into a chill, wet trunk, and finally emerged at the
side of the desolate mansion. Here his way led through
saw grass, waist high, and the blades cut at him like
lithe, vindictive knives. No light showed from the face
of the house toward him, and he came abruptly against
the bay window of the dismantled billiard room.

A sudden caution arrested him — the sound of his
approach might precipitate a catastrophe, and he cau-
tiously felt his passage about the house to the portico.
The steps creaked beneath his careful tread, but the noise
was lost in the wind. At first he could see no light; the
hall door, he discovered, was closed; then he was aware of
a faint glimmer seeping through a drawn window shade
on one side. From without he could distinguish nothing.
He listened, but not a sound rose. The stillness was more
ominous than cries.

John Woolfolk took the pistol from his pocket and,
automatically releasing the safety, moved to the door,
opening it with his left hand. The hall was unlighted;
he could feel the pressure of the darkness above. The
dank silence flowed over him like chill water rising above
his heart. He turned, and a dim thread of light, show-
ing through the chink of a partly closed doorway, led
him swiftly forward. He paused a moment before en-
tering, shrinking from what might be revealed beyond,
and then flung the door sharply open.

His pistol was directed at a low-trimmed lamp in a

[79]

GOLD AND IRON

chamber empty of all life. He saw a row of large, black
portfolios on low supports, a sewing bag spilled its con-
tents from a chair, a table bore a tin tobacco jar and the
empty skin of a plantain. Then his gaze rested upon the
floor, on a thin, inanimate body in crumpled alpaca
trousers and dark jacket, with a peaked, congested face
upturned toward the pale light. It was Lichfield Stope
— dead.

. Wodfolk bent over him, searching for a mark of
violence, for the cause of the other's death. At first he
found nothing; then, as he moved the body — its light-
ness came to him as a shock — he saw that one fragile arm
had been twisted and broken; the hand hung like a with-
ered autumn leaf from its circular cuff fastened with the
mosaic button. That was all.

He straightened up sharply, with his pistol levelled at
the door. But there had been no sound other than that of
the wind plucking at the old tin roof, rattling the shrunken
frames of the windows. Lichfield Stope had fallen back
with his countenance lying on a doubled arm, as if he were
attempting to hide from his extinguished gaze the horror
of his end. The lamp vras of the common, glass variety,
without shade; and, in a sudden eddy of air, it flickered,
threatened to go out, and a thin ribbon of smoke swept up
against the chinmey and vanished.

On the wall was a wide, stipple print of the early nine-
teenth century — the smooth sward of a village glebe
surrounded by the loW, stone walls of ancient dwellings,
with a timbered inn behind broad oaks and a swinging
sign. It was — in the print — serenely evening, and long

[80]

WILD ORANGES

shadows slipped out through an ambient glow. Woolfolk,
with pistol elevated, became suddenly conscious of the
withdrawn scene, and for a moment its utter peace held
him spellbound. It was another world, for the security,
the unattainable repose of which, he longed with a pas-
sionate bitterness.

The wind shifted its direction and beat upon the front
of the house; a different set of windows rattled, and the
blast swept compact and cold up through the blank hall.
John Woolfolk cursed his inertia of mind, and once more
addressed the profound, tragic mystery that surrounded
him.

He thought : Nicholas has gone — with Millie. Or per-
haps he has left her — in some dark, upper space. A
maddening sense of impotence settled upon him. If the
man had taken Millie out into the night he had no chance
of following, finding them. Impenetrable screens of
bushes lay on every hand, with, behind them, mile after
mile of shrouded pine woods.

His plan had gone terribly amiss, with possibilitie.!
which he could not bring himself to face. All that had
happened before in his life, and which had seemed so in-
supportable at the time, faded to insignificance. Shud-
dering waves of horror swept over him. He raised his
hand unsteadily, drew it across his brow, and it came away
dripping wet. He was oppressed by the feeling familiar
in evil dreams — of gazing with leaden limbs at deliber-
ate, unspeakable acts.

He shook off the numbness of dread. He must act —
at once! How? A thousand men could not find Iscah

[81]

GOLD AND IRON

Nicholas in the ccmfused darkness without. To raise
the scattered and meager neighborhood would consume
an entire day.

The wind agitated a rocking chair in the hall, an
erratic creaking responded, and Woolfolk started forward,
and stopped as he heard and then identified the noise.
This, he told himself, would not do; the hysteria was
creeping over him again. He shook his shoulders, wiped
his palm and took a fresh grip on the pistol.

Then from above came the heavy, unmistakable fall
of a foot. It was not repeated; the silence spread once
more, broken only from without. But there was no pos-
sibility of mistake, there had been no subtlety in the sound
— a slow foot had moved, a heavy body had shifted.

At this actuality a new determination seized him; he
was conscious of a feeling that almost resembled joy, an
immeasurable relief at the prospect of action and retalia-
tion. He took up the lamp, held it elevated while he
advanced to the door with ready pistol. There, however,
he stopped, realizing the mark he would present moving,
conveniently illuminated, up the stair. The floor above
was totally unknown to him; at any turning he might be
surprised, overcome, rendered useless. He had a supreme
purpose to perform. He had already, perhaps fatally,
erred, and there must be no further misstep.

John Woolfolk realized that he must go upstairs in the
dark, or with, at most, in extreme necessity, a fleeting
and guarded matchlight. This, too, since he would be
entirely without knowledge of his surroundings, would be
inconvenient, perhaps impossible. He must try. He put
the lamp back upon the table, moving it farther out of the

[82]

WILD ORANGES

eddy from fhe door, where it would stay lighted against a
possible, pressing need. Then he moved from fhe wan
radiance into the night of the hall.

XII

He formed in his mind the general aspect of the house:
its width faced the orange grove, the stair mounted on
the hall's right, back of which a door gave to the billiard
room; on the left was the chamber of the lamp, and
that, he had seen, opened into a room behind, while
the kitchen wing, carried to a chamber above, had been
obviously added. It was probable that he would find the
same general arrangement on the second floor. The hall
would be smaller, a space inclosed for a bath, and a
means of ascent to the roof.

John Wodfolk mounted the stair quickly and as silently
as possible, placing his feet squarely on the body of the
steps. At the top the handrail disappeared; and, with
his back to a plaster wall, he moved imtil he encountered
a closed door. That interior was above the billiard
room; it was on the opposite floor he had heard the footfall,
and he was certain that no one had crossed the hall or
closed a door. He continued, following the dank wall.
At places the plaster had fallen, and his fingers en-
countered the bare skeleton of the house. Farther on he
narrowly escaped knocking down a heavily framed pic-
ture — another, he thought, of Lichfield Stope's mezzo-
tints — but he caught it, left it hanging crazily awry.

He passed an open door, recognized the bathroom from
the flat odor of chlorides, reached an angle of the wall

[83]

GOLD AND IRON

and proceeded with renewed caution. Next he en-
countered the cold panes of a window and then found the
entrance to the room above the kitchen.

He stopped — it was barely possible that the sound
he heard had echoed from here. He revolved the wisdom
of a match, but — he had progressed very well so far
— decided in the negative. One suspect of the situation
troubled him greatly — the absence of any sound or
warning from Millie. It was highly improbable that
his entrance to the house had been unnoticed. The con-
trary was likely — that bis sudden appearance had driven
Nicholas above.

Woolfolk started forward more hurriedly, urged by his
increasing apprehension, when his foot went into the
opening of a depressed step and flung him sharply for-
ward. In his instinctive effort to avoid falling the pistol
dropped clattering into the darkness. A sudden^ choked
cry sounded beside him, and a heavy, enveloping body
fell on his back. This sent him reeling against the wall,
where he felt the muscles of an unwieldy arm tighten
about his neck.

John Woolfolk threw himself back, when a wrist heav-
ily struck his shoulder and a jarring blow fell upon the
wall. The hand, he knew, had held a knife, for he could
feel it groping desperately over the plaster, and he put
all his strength into an effort to drag his assailant into
the middle of the floor.

It was impossible now to recover his pistol, but he
would make it difficult for Nicholas to get the knife. The
struggle in that way was equalized. He turned in the
gripping aims about him and the men wei-e chest to chest.

[84]

WILD ORANGES

Neither spoke; each fought solely to get the other pros-
trate, while Nicholas developed a secondary pressure to-
ward the blade buried in the wall. This Woolfolk suc-
cessfully blocked. In the supreme effort to bring the
struggle to a decisive end neither dealt the other minor in-
juries. There were no blows — nothing but the strain-
ing pull of aims, the sudden weight of bodies, the cun-
ning twisting of legs. They fought swiftly, whirling and
staggering from place to place.

The hot breath of an invisible, gaping mouth beat upon
Woolfdk's cheek. He was an exceptionally powerful
man. His spare body had been hardened by its years of
exposure to the elements, in the constant labor he had
expended on the ketch, the long contests with adverse
winds and seas, and he had little doubt of his issuing
successful from the present crisis. Iscah Nicholas, though
his strength was beyond question, was heavy and slow.
Yet the latter was struggling with surprising agility.
He was animated by a convulsive energy, a volcanic out-
burst characteristic of the obsession of monomania.

The strife continued for an astonishing, an absurd
length of time. Woolfolk became infuriated at his in-
ability to bring it to an end, and he expended an even
increasing effort. Nicholas' arms were about his chest;
he was endeavoring by sheer compression to crush Wool-
folk's opposition, when the latter injected his mounting
wrath into the conflict. They spun in the open like a
grotesque human top, and fell. Woolfolk was momen-
tarily underneath, but he twisted lithely uppermost. He
felt a heavy, blunt hand leave his arm and fed, in the
dark, for his face. Its purpose was to spoil, and he

[85]

GOLD AND IRON

caught it and savagely bent it down and back, but a
cruel forcing of his leg defeated his purpose.

This, he realized, could not go on indefinitely; one or
the other would soon weaken. An insidious doubt of his
ultimate victory lodged like a burr in his brain. Nicholas'
strength was inhuman; it increased rather than waned.
He was growing vindictive in a petty way — he tore at
Woolfolk's throat, dug the flesh from his lower arm.
Thereafter warm and gummy blood made John Woolfolk's
grip insecure.

The doubt of his success grew; he fought more desper-
ately. His thoughts, which till now had been dear, logi-
cally aloof, were blurred in blind spurts of passion. His
mentality gradually deserted him; he reverted to lower and
lower types of the human animal; during the accumulat-
ing seconds of the strife he swung back through count-
less centuries to the primitive, snarling brute. His shirt
was torn from a shoulder, and he felt the sweating, bare
skin of his opponent pressed against him.

The conflict continued without diminishing. He
struggled once more to his feet, with Nicholas, and they
exchanged battering blows, dealt necessarily at random.
Sometimes his arm swept violently through mere space,
at others his fist landed with a satisfying shock on the
body of his antagonist. The dark was occasionally
crossed by flashes before Woolfolk's smitten eyes, but no
actual light pierced the profouiid night of the upper hall.
At times their struggle grew audible, smacking blows fell
sharply, but there was no other sound except that of the
wind tearing at the sashes, thundering dully in the loose
tin roof, rocking the dwelling.

[86]

WILD ORANGES

They fell again, and equally their efforts slackened,
their grips became more feeble. Finally, as if by com-
mon consent, they rolled apart. A leaden tide of apathy
crept over Woolfolk's battered body, folded his aching
brain. He listened in a sort of indifferent attention to
the tempestuous breathing of Iscah Nicholas. John Wool-
folk wondered dully were Millie was. There had been no
sign of her since he had fallen into the step and she had
cried out. Perhaps she was dead from fright. He con-
sidered this possibility in a hazy, detached manner. She
would be better dead — if he failed.

He heard, with little interest, a stirring on the floor
beside him, and thought with an overwhelming weariness
and distaste that the strife was to commence once more.
But, curiously, Nicholas moved away from him. Wool-
folk was glad; and then he was puzzled for a moment by
the sliding of hands over an invisible wall. He slowly
realized that the other was groping for the knife he had
buried in the plaster. John Woolfolk considered a similar
search for the pistol he had dropped; he might even light
a match. It was a rather wonderful weapon and would
spray lead like a hose of water. He would like ex-
ceedingly well to have it in his hand with Nicholas be-
fore him.

Then in a sudden mental illumination he realized the
extreme peril of the moment; and, lurching to his feet, he
again threw himself on the other.

The struggle went on, apparently to infinity; it was
less vigorous now; the blows, for the most part, were
impotent. Iscah Nicholas never said a word; and fan-
tastic thoughts wheeled through Woolfolk's brain. He

[87]

GOLD AND IRON

lost all sense of the identity of his opponent and became
convinced that he was combating an impersonal hulk —
the thing that gasped and smeared his face, that strove
to end him, was the embodied and evil spirit of the place,
a place that even Halvard had seen was damnably wrong.
He questioned if such a force could be killed, if a being
materialized from the outer dark could be stopped by a
pistol of even the latest, most ingenious mechanism.

They fell and rose, and fell. Woolfolk's fingers were
twisted in a damp lock of hair; they came away — with
the hair. He. moved to his knees, and the other followed.
For a moment they rested face to face, with arms limply
clasped about the opposite shoulders. Then they turned
over on the floor; they turned once more, and suddenly
the darkness was empty beneath John Woolfolk. He fell
down and down, beating his head on a series of sharp
edges; while a second, heavy body fell with him, by
turns under and above.

XIII

He rose with the ludicrous alacrity of a man who had
taken a public and awkward misstep. The wan lamp-
light, diffused from within, made just visible the bulk that
had descended with him. It lay without motion, sprawK
ing upon a lower step and the floor. John Woolfolk
moved backward from it, his hand behind him, feding
for the entrance to the lighted room. He shifted his
feet carefully, for the darkness was wheeling about him
in visible black rings streaked with palest orange as he
passed into the room.

[88]

WILD ORANGES

Here objects, dimensions became normally placed, rec-
og^izabIe. He saw the mezzotint with its sere and sunny
peace, the portfolios on their stands, like grotesque and
flattened quadrupeds, and Lichfield Stope on the floor, still
hiding his dead face in the crook of his arm.

He saw these things, remembered them, and yet now
they had new significance — they oozed a sort of vital hor-
ror, they seemed to crawl with a malignant and repulsive
life. The entire room was charged with this palpable,
sentient evil. John Woolfolk defiantly faced the still,
cold indosure; he was conscious of an unseen scrutiny, of
a menace that lived in pictures, moved the fingers of the
dead, and that could take actual bulk and pound his heart
sore.

He was not afraid of the wrongness that inhabited this
muck of house and grove and matted bush. He said this
loudly to the prostrate fo^n; then, waiting a little, repeated
it. He would smash the print with its fallacious expanse
of peace. The broken glass of the smitten picture jingled
thinly on the floor. Woolfolk turned suddenly and de-
feated the purpose of whatever had been stealthily behind
him; anyway it had disappeared. He stood in a strained
attitude, listening to the aberrations of the wind without,
when an actual presence slipped by him, stopping in
the middle of the floor.

It was Millie Stope. Her eyes were opened to their
widest extent, but they had the peculiar blank fixity of
the eyes of the blind. Above them her hair slipped and
slid in a loosened knot.

'' I had to walk round him," she protested in a low,
fluctuating voice, " there was no other way . . . Right

[89]

GOLD AND IRON

by his head. My skirt " She broke off and, shud-
dering, came close to John Woolfolk. " I think we'd
better go away," she told him, nodding. " It's quite
impossible here, with him in the hall, where you have to
pass so close."

Woolfolk drew back from her. She too was a part of
the house; she had led him there — a white flame that
he had followed into the swamp. And this was no ordi-
nary marsh. It was, he added aloud, ^'A swamp of
souls."

" Then," she replied, " we must leave at once."

A dragging sound rose from the hall. Millie Stope
cowered in a voiceless access of terror; but John Woolfolk,
lamp in hand, moved to the door. He was curious to
see exactly what was happening. The bulk had risen, a
broad back swayed like a pendulum and a swollen hand
gripped the stair rail. The form heaved itself up a
step, paused, tottering, and then mounted again. Wool-
folk saw at once that the other was going for the knife
buried in the wall above. He watched with an impersonal
interest the dragging ascent. At the seventh step it ceased,
the figure crumpled, slid halfway back to the floor.

" You can't do it," Woolfolk observed critically.

The other sat bowed, with one leg extended stiffly down-
ward, on the stair tliat mounted from thie pale radiance of
the lamp into impenetrable darkness. Woolfolk moved
back into the room and replaced the lamp on its table.
Millie Stope still stood with open, hanging hands, a
countenance of expectant dread. Her eyes did not shift
from the door as he entered and passed her; her gaze
hung starkly on what might emerge from the hall.

[90]

WILD ORANGES

A deep loathing of his surroundings swept over John
Woolfolk, a sudden revulsion from the dead man on the
floor, from the ponderous menace on the stair, the white
figure that had brought it all upon him. A mounting
horror of the place possessed him, and he turned and in-
continently fled. A complete panic enveloped him at his
flight, a blind necessity to get away, and he ran heed-
lessly through the night, with head up and arms ex-
tended. His feet struck upon a rotten fragment of board
that broke beneath him, he pushed through a tangle of
grass, and then his progress was held by soft and drag-
ging sand. A moment later he was halted by a diill
flood rising abruptly to his knees. He drew back sharply
and fell on the beach, with his heels in the water of the
bay.

An insuperable weariness pinned him down, a com-
plete exhaustion of brain and body. A heavy wind struck
like a wet cloth on his face. The sky had been swept
clear of clouds and stars sparkled in the pure depths of
the night. The latter were white, with the exception of
one that burned with an unsteady, yellow ray and seemed
close by. This, John Woolfolk thought, was strange. He
concentrated a frowning gaze upon it — perhaps in fall-
ing into the soiled atmosphere of the earth it had lost its
crystal gleam and burned with a turgid light. It was
very, very probable.

He continued to watch it, facing the tonic wind, until
with a clearing of his mind, a gasp of joyful recognition,
he knew that it was the riding light of the Gar.

Woolfolk sat very still under the pressure of his re-
newed sanity. Fact upon fact, memory on memory,

[91}

GOLD AND IRON

returned, and in proper perspective built up again his
mentality, his logic, his scattered powers of being. The
Gar rode uneasily on her anchor chains; the wind was
shifting. They must get away I — Halyard, waiting at the
wharf — Millie

He rose hurriedly to his feet — he had cravenly de-
serted Millie; left her, in all her anguish, with her dead
parent and Iscah Nicholas. His love for her swept back,
infinitely heightened by the knowledge of her suffering.
At the same time there returned the familiar fear of a
permanent disarrangement in her of chords that were un-
responsive to the clumsy expedients of affection and sci-
ence. She had been subjected to a strain that might well
unsettle a relatively strong will; and she had been fragile
in the beginning.

She must be a part of no more scenes of violence, he
told himself, moving hurriedly through the orange grove;
she must be led quietly to the tender — that is, if it were
not already too late. His entire effort to preserve her
had been a series of blunders, each one of which might
well have proved fatal, and now, in their entirety, perhaps
had.

He mounted to the porch and entered the hall. The
light flowed undisturbed from the room on the left; and,
in its thin wash, he saw that Iscah Nicholas had disap-
peared from the lower steps. Immediately, however, and
from higher up, he heard a shuffling, and could just make
out a form heaving obscurely in the gloom. Nicholas
patently was making progress toward the consummation
of his one, fixed idea; but Woolfolk decided that at pres-
ent he could best, afford to ignore him.

[92]

WILD ORANGES

He entered the lighted room, and found Millie seated
and gazing in dull wonderment at the figure on the floor.

'^ I must tell you about my father/' she said conversa-
tionally. "You know, in Virginia, the women tied an
apron to his door because he would not go to war, and for
years that preyed on his mind, until he was afraid of the
slightest thing. He was without a particle of strength

— just to watch the sun cross the sky wearied him, and
the smallest disagreement upset him for a week."

She stopped, lost in amazement at what she con-
templated, what was to follow.

"Then Nicholas But that isn't important. I

was to meet a man — we were going away together, to
some place where it would be peaceful. We were to
sail there. He said at eight o'clock. Well, at seven
Nicholas was in the kitchen. I got father into his very
heaviest coat, and laid out a muffler and his gloves, then
sat and waited. I didn't need anything extra, my heart
was quite wann. Then father asked why I had changed
his coat — if I'd told him, he would have died of fright

— he said he was too hot, and he fretted and worried.
Nicholas heard him, and he wanted to know why I had
put on father's winter coat He found the muffler and
gloves ready and got suspicious.

" He stayed in the hall, crying a little — Nicholas cried
right often — while I sat with father and tried to think of
some excuse to get away. At last I had to go — for an
orange, I said — but Nicholas wouldn't believe it. He
pushed me back and told me I was going out to the other.

" * Nicholas,' I said, * don't be silly; nobody would come
away from a boat on a night like this. Besides, he's

[93]

GOLD AND IRON

gone away.' We had that last made up. But he pushed
me back again. Then I heard father move behind us,
and I thought — he's going to die of fright right now.
But father's footsteps came on across the floor and up to
my side.

"'Don't do that, Nicholas/ he told him; *take your
hand from my daughter.' He swayed a little, his lips
shook, but he stood facing him. It was father 1 " Her
voice died away,, and she was silent for a moment, gazing
at the vision of that unsuspected and surprising courage.
"Of course Nicholas killed him," she added. "He
twisted him away and father died. That didn't matter,"
she told Wodfolk; " but the other was terribly important,
anyone can see that."

John Woolfolk listened intently, but there was no sound
from without. Then, with every appearance of leisure,
he rolled and lighted a cigarette.

"Splendid!" he said of her recital; "and I don't
doubt you're right about the important thing." He moved
toward her, holding out his hand. " Splendid! But
we must go on — the man is waiting for you."

" It's too late," she responded indifferently. She redi-
rected her thoughts to her parent's enthralling end. " Do
you think a man as brave as that should lie on the floor? "
she demanded. " A flag," she added obscurely, consider-
ing an appropriate covering for the still form.

" No, not on the floor," Woolfolk instantly responded.
He bent and, lifting the body of Lidifield Stope, carried
it into the hall, where, relieved at the opportunity to dis-
pose of his burden, he left it in an obscure comer.

Iscah Nicholas was stirring again. John Woolfolk

[94]

WILD ORANGES

/

waited, gazing up the stair, but the other progressed no
more than a step. Then he returned to Millie.

" Come," he said. " ^^o time to lose." He took her
arm and exerted a gentle pressure toward the door.

" I explained that it was too late," she reiterated, evad-
ing him. " Father really lived, but I died. * Swamp of
souls,' " she added in a lower voice. " Someonfe said
that, and it's true; it happened to me."

" The man waiting for you will be worried," he sug-
gested. "He depends absolutely on your coming."

" Nice man. Something had happened to him too. He
caught a rockfish and Nicholas boiled it in milk for
our breakfast." At the mention of Iscah Nicholas a
slight shiver passed over her. This was what Woolfolk
hoped for — a return of her normal revulsion from her
surroundings, from the past.

"Nicholas," he said sharply, contradicted by a faint
dragging from the stair, " is dead."

"If you could only assure me of that," she replied
wistfully. " If I could be certain that he wasn't in the
next shadow I'd go gladly. Any other way it would
be useless." She laid her hand over her heart. " I

must get him out of here My father did. His lips

trembled a little, but he said quite clearly: * Don't do
that. Don't touch my daughter.' "

" Your father was a singularly brave man," he as-
sured her, rebelling against the leaden monotony of
speech that had fallen upon them. "Your mother too
was brave," he temporized. He could, he decided, wait
no longer. She must, if necessary, be carried away
forcibly. It was a desperate chance — the least pressure

[95]

GOLD AND IRON

might result in a permanent, jangling discord. Her
waist, torn, he saw, upon her pallid dioulder, was in-
sufficient covering against the wind and night. Looking
about he discovered the muffler, laid out for her father,
crumpled on the floor; and, with an arm about her, folded
it over her throat and breast.

" Now we're away," he declared in a forced lightness.

She resisted him for a moment, and then collapsed into
his support.

John Woolfolk half led, half carried her into the hall.
His gaze searched the obscurity of the stair; it was
empty; but from above came the sound of a heavy, drag-
ging step.

XIV

Outside she cowered pitifully from the violent blast of
the wind, the boundless, stirred space. They made their
way about the comer of the house, leaving behind the
pale, glimmering rectangle of the lighted window. In the
thicket Woolfolk was forced to proceed more slowly.
Millie stumbled weakly over the rough way, apparently at
the point of slipping to the ground. He felt a supreme
relief when the cool sweep of the sea opened before him
and Halvard emerged from the gloom.

He halted for a moment, with his arm about Millie's
shoulders, facing his man. Even in the dark he was
conscious of Poul Halvard's stalwart being, of his rock-
like integrity.

" I was ddayed," he said finally, amazed at the in-
adequacy of his words to express the pressure of the
past hours. Had they been two or four? He had been

[96]

WILD ORANGES

totally unconscious of the passage of actual time. In
the dark house behind the orange grove he had lived
through tormented ages, descended into depths be-
yond the measured standard of Greenwich. Halvard
said:

. " Yes, sir."

The sound of a blundering progress rose from the
path behind them, the breaking of branches and the slip-
ping of a heavy tread on the water-soaked ground. John
Woolfolk, with an oath, realized that it was Nidiolas,
still animated by his fixed, maniacal idea. Millie Stope
recognized the sound, too, for she trembled abjectly on his
arm. He knew that she could support no more violence^
and he turned to the dim, square-set figure before him.

"Halvard, it's that fellow Nicholas. He's insane —
has a knife. Will you stop him while I get Miss Stope
into the tender? She's pretty well done." He laid his
hand on the other's shoulder as he started immediately
forward. " I shall have to go on, Halvard, if anything
unfortunate occurs," he said in a different voice.

The sailor made no reply; but as Woolfolk urged
Millie out over the wharf he saw Halvard throw himself
upon a dark bulk that broke from the wood.

The tender was made fast fore and aft; and, getting
down into the uneasy boat, Woolfolk reached up and
lifted Millie bodily to his side. She dropped in a still,
white heap on the bottom. He unfastened the painter and
stood holding the tender dose to the wharf, with his head
above its platform, straining his gaze in the direction of
the obscure struggle on land.

He could see nothing, and heard only an occasional

[97]

GOLD AND IRON

trampling of the underbrush. It was difficult to remain
detached, give no assistance, while Halvard encountered
Iscah Nicholas. Yet with Millie in a semi-collapse, and
the bare possibility of Nicholas' knifing them both, he
felt that this was his only course. Halvard was an un-
usually powerful, active man, and the other must have
suffered from the stress of his long conflict in the hall.

The thing terminated speedily. There was the sound
of a heavy fall, a diminishing thrashing in the saw grass,
and silence. An indistinguishable form advanced over
the wharf, and Woolfolk prepared to shove the tender
free. But it was Poul Halvard. He got down, Woolfolk
thought, clumsily, and mechanically assumed his place
at the oars. Woolfolk sat aft, with an arm about Millie
Stope. The sailor said fretfully:

" I stopped him. He was all pumped out. Missed his
hand at first — the dark — a scratch."

He rested on the oars, fingering his shoulder. The
tender swung dangerously near the corrugated rock of the
shore, and Woolfolk sharply directed: "Keep way on
her."

" Yes, sir," Halvard replied, once more swinging into
his short, efficient stroke. It was, however, less sure
than usual; an oar missed its hold and skittered impo-
tently over the water, drenching Woolfolk with a brief,
cold spray. Again the bow of the tender dipped into
the point of land they were rounding, and John Woolfolk
spoke more abruptly than before.

He was seriously alarmed about Millie. Her face was
apathetic, almost blank, and her arms hung across his

[98]

WILD ORANGES

knees with no more response than a doll's. He wondered
desperately if, as ^e had said, her spirit had perished;
if the Millie Stope that had moved him so swiftly and
tragically from his long indifference, his aversion to life,
had gone, leaving him more hopelessly bereaved than be-
fore. The sudden extinction of Ellen's life had been
more supportable than Millie's crouching dumbly at his
feet. His arm unconsciously tightened about her, and she
gazed up with a momentary, questioning flicker of her
wide-opened eyes. He repeated her name in a deep
whisper, but her head fell forward loosely, and left him
in racking doubt

Now he could see the shortly swa3dng riding light of the
Gar. Halvard was propelling them vigorously but er-
ratically forward. At times he remuttered his declarations
about the encounter with Nicholas. The stray words
reached Woolfolk:

" Stopped him — the cursed dark — a scratch.'*

He brought the tender awkwardly alongside the ketch,
with a grinding shock, and held the boats together while
John Woolfolk shifted Millie to the deck. Woolfolk
took her immediately into the cabin; where, lighting a
swinging lamp, he placed her on one of the prepared
berths and endeavored to wrap her in a blanket. But,
in a shuddering access of fear, she rose with outheld
palms.

" Nicholas I " she cried shrilly. " There — at the
door! "

He sat beside her, restraining her convulsive effort to
cower in a far, dark angle of the cabin.

[99]

GOLD AND IRON

"NoDsensel" he told her brusqudy. "You are oa
the Gar. You are safe. In an hour you will be in a
new world.'*

"With John Woolfolk?''

" I am John Woolfolk."

" But he — you — left me."

"I am here," he insisted with a tightening of the
heart He rose, animated by an overwhelming necessity
to get the ketch under Way, to leave at once, forever, the
invisible shore of the bay. He gently folded her again
in the blanket, but she resisted him. " I'd rather stay
up," she said with a sudden lucidity. " It's nice here;
I wanted to come bef(»:e, but he wouldn't let me."

A glimmer of hope swept over him as he mounted
swiftly to the deck. " Get up the anchors," he called;
" reef down the jigger and put on a handful of jib.'*

There was no immediate response, and he peered over
the obscured deck in search of Halvard. The man rose
slowly from a sitting posture by the main boom. " Very
good, sir," he replied in a forced tone.

He disappeared forward, while Woolfolk, shutting the
cabin door on the confusing illumination within, lighted
the binnacle lamp, bent over the engine, swiftly making
connections and adjustments, and cranked the wheel with
a sharp, expert turn. The explosions settled iato a dull,
regular succession, and he coupled the propeller and slowly
maneuvered the ketch up over the anchors, reducing the
strain on the hawsers and allowing Halvard to get in the
slack. He waited impatiently for the sailor's cry of all
clear, and demanded the cause of the delay.

"The bight slipped," the other called in a muffled,

[100]

WILD ORANGES

angry voice. "One's clear now," he added. "Bring
her up again." The ketch forged ahead, but the wait
was longer than before. "Caught," Halvard's voice
drifted thinly aft; "coral ledge." Woolfolk hdd the
Gar stationary until the sailor cried weakly: " Anchor's
apeak."

They moved imperceptibly through the dark, into the
greater force of the wind beyond the point. The dull
roar of the breaking surf ahead grew louder. Halvard
should have had the jib up and been aft at the jigger, but
he failed to appear. John Woolfolk wondered, in a
mounting impatience, what was the matter with the man.
Finally an obscure form passed him and hung over the
housed sail, stripping its cover and removing the stops.
The sudden thought of a disconcerting possibility ban-
ished Woolfolk's annoyance. " Halvard," he demanded,
" did Nicholas knife you? "

" A scratch," the other stubbornly reiterated. " I'll
tie it up later. No time now — I stopped him perma-
nent."

The jigger^ reefed to a mere irregular patch, rose
with a jerk, and the ketch rapidly left the protection of the
shore. She dipped sharply and, flattened over by a violent
ball of wind, buried her rail in the black, swinging water,
and there was a small crash of breaking china from within.
The wind appeared to sweep high up in empty space and
occasionally descend to deal the yacht a staggering blow.
The bar, directly ahead — as Halvard had earlier pointed
out — was now covered with the smother of a lowering
tide. The pass, the other had discovered, too, had filled.
It was charted at four feet, the Gar drew a full three, and

[101]

GOLD AND IRON

Woolfolk knew that there must be no error, no uncer-
tainty, in running out.

Halvard was so long in stowing away the jigger shears
that Woolfolk turned to make sure that the sailor had
not been swept from the deck. The " scratch," he was
certain, was deeper than the other admitted. When they
were safely at sea he would insist upon an examination.

The subject of this consideration fell rather than stepped
into the cockpit, and stood rocked by the motion of the
swells, clinging to the cabin's edge. Woolfolk shifted the
engine to its highest speed, and they were driving through
the tempestuous dark onto the bar. He was now con-
fronted by the necessity for an immediate decision. Hal-
vard or himself would have to stand forward, clinging pre-
cariously to a stay, and repeatedly sound the depth of the
shallowing water as they felt their way out to sea. He
gazed anxiously at the dark bulk before him, and saw
that the sailor had lost his staunchness of outline, his
aspect of invincible determination.

"Halvard," he demanded again sharply, "this is no
time for pretense. How are you? "

"All right," the other repeated desperately, through
clenched teeth. " I Ve — I've taken knives from men be-
fore — on the docks at Stockholm. I missed his hand at
first — it was the night."

The cabin door swung open, and a sudden lurch flung
Millie Stope against the wheel. Woolfolk caught and
held her until the wave rolled by. She was ridden by
terror, and held abjectly to the rail while the next swell
lifted them upward. He attempted to urge her back to
the protection of the cabin, but she resisted with such a con-

[102]

WILD ORANGES

vulsive detennination that he relinquished the effort and
enveloped her in his glistening oilskin.

This had consumed a perilous amount of time; ajid,
swiftly decisive, he commanded Halvard to take the
wheel. He swung himself to the deck and secured the
long sounding pole. He could see ahead on either side
the dim white bars forming and dissolving, and called to
the man at the wheel: ,

" Mark the breakers I Fetch her between.**

On the bow, leaning out over the surging tide, he drove
the sounding pole forward and down, but it floated back
free. They were not yet on the bar. The ketch heeled
until the black plain of water rose above his knees, driv-
ing at him with a deceitful force, sinking back slowly as
the yacht straightened buoyantly. He again sounded, the
pole struck bottom, and he cried:

« Five."

The infuriated beating of the waves on Ae obstruc-
tion drawn across their path drowned nis voice, and he
shouted the mark once more. Then after another sound-
ing:

" Four and three."

The yacht fell away dangerously before a heavy, diag-
onal blow; she hung for a moment, rolling like a log, and
then slowly regained her way. Woolfolk's apprehension
increased. It would, perhaps, have been better if they had
delayed, to examine Halvard's injury. The man had in-
sisted that it was of no moment, and John Woolfolk had
been driven by a consuming desire to leave the miasmatic
shore. He swung the pole forward and cried:

" Four and a half."

[103]

GOLD AND IRON

The water was shoaling rapidly. The breaking waves
on the port and starboard hissed by with lightning rapid-
ity. The ketch veered again, shipped a crushing weight
of water, and responded more slowly than before to a tardy
pressure of the rudder. The greatest peril, John Wool-
folk knew, lay directly before them. He realized from
the action of the ketch that Halvard was steering uncer-
tainly, and that at any moment the Gar might strike and
fall off too far for recovery, when she could not live in
the pounding surf.

" Four and one," he cried hoarsely. And then imme-
diately after: "Four."

Chance had been against him frcsn the first, he thought,
and there flashed through his mind the dark panorama,
the accumulating disasters of the night. A negation lay
upon his existence that would not be lifted. It had fol-
lowed him like a sinister shadow for years to this obscure^
black smother of water, to the Gar reeling crazily forward
under an impotent hand. The yacht was behaving
heroically; no other ketch could have lived so long, re-
sponded so gallantly to a wavering wheel.

"Three and three,*' he shouted above the combined
stridor of wind and sea.

The next minute would witness their safe passage or a
helpless hulk beating to pieces on the bar, with three
human fragments whirling under the crushing masses of
water, floating, perhaps, with the dawn into the tran-
quillity of the bay.

" Three and a half," he cried monotonously.

The Gar trembled like a wounded and dull animal.
The solid seas were reaching hungrily over Woolfolk's

[104]

WILD ORANGES

legs. A sudden stolidity possessed him. He thrust the
pole out ddiberately, skillfully:

" Three and a quarter."

A lower sounding would mean the end. He paused
for a moment, his dripping face turned to the far stars,
his lips moved in silent, unformulated aspirations —
Halvard and himsdf, in the sea that had been their home;
but Millie was so fragile! He made the sounding pre-
cisely, between the heaving swdls, and marked the pole
instantly, driven backward by their swinging flight.

"Three and a half." His voice held ^ a new, uncon-
trollable quiver. He sounded again immediately:
**And three-quarters."

They had passed the bar.

XV

A gladness like the white flare of burning powder
swept over him, and then he became conscious of other,
minor sensations — his head ached intolerably from the
fall down the stair, and a grinding pain shot through his
shoulder, lodging in his torn lower arm at the slightest
movement. He slipped the sounding pole into its loops
on the cabin and hastily made his way aft to the relief of
Poul Halvard.

The sailor was nowhere visible; but, in an intermittent,
reddish light that faded and swelled as the cabin door
swung open and shut, Woolfdk saw a white figure ding-
ing to the whed — Millie.

Instantly his hands replaced hers on the spokes and,
as if with a palpable sigh of relief, the Gar steadied to

[105]

GOLD AND IRON

her course. Millie Stope clung to the deck rail, sobbing
with exhaustion.

" He's — he's dead! '* she exclaimed, between her rack-
ing inspirations. She pointed to the floor of the cockpit,
and there, sliding grotesquely with the motion of the sea-
way, was Poul Halvard. An arm was flung out, as if in
ward against the ketch's side, but it crumpled, the body
hit heavily, a hand seemed to clutch at the boards it had
so often and thoroughly swabbed, but without avail.
The face momentarily turned upward; it was haggard
beyond expression, and bore stamped upon it, in lines
that resembled those of old age, the agonized struggle
against the inevitable last treachery of life.

" When " John Woolfdik stopped in sheer, leaden

amazement.

"Just when you called * Three and a quarter.' Be-
fore that he had fallen on his knees. He begged me to
help him hold the wheel. He said you'd be lost if I didn't.
He talked all the time about keeping her head up and
up. I helped him. Your voice came back years apart.
At the last he was on the floor, holding the bottom of the
wheel. He told me to keep it steady, dead ahead. His
voice grew so weak that I couldn't hear; and then all at
once he slipped away. I — I held on — called to you.
But against the wind "

He braced his knee against the wheel and, leaning
out, found the jigger sheet and flattened the reefed sail;
he turned to where the jib sheet led after, and then swung
the ketch about. The yacht rode smoothly, slipping for-
ward over the long, even ground swell, and he turned
with immeasurable emotion to the woman beside him.

[106]

WILD ORANGES

The light from the cabin flooded out over her face,
and he saw that, miraculously, the fear had gone. Her
countenance was drawn with weariness and the hideous
strain of the past minutes, but her gaze squarely met the
night and sea. Her chin was lifted, its graceful line
firm, and her mouth was in repose. She had, as he had
recognized she alone must, conquered the legacy of Lich-
field Stope; while he, John Woolfolk, and Halvard, had
put Nicholas out of her life. She was free.

" If you could go below " he suggested. " In the

morning, with this wind, well be at anchor under a
fringe of palms, in water like a blue-silk counterpane."

" I think I could now, with you," she replied. She
pressed her lips, salt and enthralling, against his face, and
made her way into the cabin. He locked the wheel mo-
mentarily and, following, wrapped her in the blankets,
on the new sheets prepared for her coming. Then, put-
ting out the light, he shut the cabin door and returned
to the wheel.

The body of Poul Halvard struck his feet and rested
there. A good man, bom by the sea, who had known its
every expression; with a faithful and simple heart, as such
men occasionally had.

The diminished wind swept in a dear diapason through
the pellucid sky; the resplendent sea reached vast and
magnetic to its invisible horizon. A sudden distaste
seized John Woolfolk for the dragging death ceremonials
of land. Halvard had known the shore mostly as a
turbulent and unclean strip that had finally brought
about his end.

He leaned forward and found beyond any last doubt

[107]

GOLD AND IRON

fhat the other was dead; a black, clotted surface adhered
to the wound which his pride, his invincible detennination,
had driven him to deny.

In the space beneath the afterdeck Woolfolk found a
spare folded anchor for the tender, a length of rope, and
he slowly completed the preparations for his purpose.
He lifted the body to the narrow deck outside the rail,
and, in a long dip, the waves carried it smoothly and
soundlessly away. John Woolfolk said:

''*... Commit his body to the deep, looking for the
general resurrection . . . through . . . Christ.' "

Then, upright and motionless at the wheel, with the
wan radiance of the binnacle lamp floating up over his
hollow cheeks and set gaze, he held the ketch southward
through the night.

[108J

Tubal Cain

ALEXANDER HXJLINGS sat at the dingy,
green-baize covered table, with one slight knee
hung loosely over the other, and his tenuous
fingers lightly gripping the time-polished wooden arms
of a hickory chair. He was staring somberly, with an
immobile, thin, dark countenance, at the white plaster wall
before him. Close by his right shoulder a window opened
on a tranquil street, where the vermilion maple buds
were splitting; and beyond the window a door was ajar
on a plank sidewalk. Some shelves held crumbling yel-
low calf-bound volumes, a few new, with glazed black
labels; at the back was a small cannon stove, with an
elbow of pipe let into the plaster; a large steel engrav-
ing of Chief Justice Marshall hung on the wall; and in a
farther comer a careless pile of paper, folded in dockets
or tied with casual string, was collecting a grey film of
neglect. A small banjo clock, with a brass-railed pedi-
ment and an elongated picture in color of the Exchange
at Manchester, traced the regular, monotonous passage of
minutes into hour.

The hour extended, doubled; but Alexander Hulings
barely shifted a knee, a hand. At times a slight con-
vulsive sliudder passed through his shoulders, but without

[111]

GOLD AND IRON

affecting his position or the concentrated gloom. Occa-
sionally he swallowed dryly; his grip momentarily tight-
ened on the chair, but his gaze was level. The afternoon
waned; a sweet breath of flowering magnolia drifted in
at the door; the light grew tender; and footfalls without
sounded far away. Suddenly Hulings moved; his chair
scraped harshly over the bare floor and he strcAe abruptly
outside, where he stood facing a small tin sign nailed near
the door. It read:

Alexander Hulings
counselor at law

With a violent gesture, unpremeditated even by himself,
he forced his hand under an edge of the sign and ripped it
from its place. Then he went back and flung it bitterly,
with a crumpling impact, away from him, and resumed his
place at the table.

It was the end of that! He had practiced law seven,
nine, years, detesting its circuitous trivialities, uniformly
failing to establish a professional success, without real-
izing his utter legal unfitness. Before him on a scrap
of paper were the figures of his past year's activities.
He had made something over nine himdred dollars. And
he was thirty-four years old! Those facts, seen together,
dinned failure in his brain. There were absolutely no
indications of a brighter future. Two other actualities
added to the gloom of his thoughts — one was Hallie
Flower, that would have to be encountered at once, this
evening; and the other was — his health.

He was reluctant to admit any question of the latter;

[112]

TUBAL CAIN

he had the feeling, ahnost a superstition, that such an
admission increased whatever, if anything, was the mat-
ter with him. It was vague, but increasingly disturb-
ing; he had described it with difficulty to Doctor Veneada,
his only intimate among the Eastlake men, as a sensation
like that a fiddlestring might experience when tightened
remorselessly by a blundering hand.

''At any minute," he had said, "the damned thing
must go! "

Veneada had frowned out of his whiskers.

" What you need," the doctor had decided, " is a com-
plete change. You are strung up. Go away; forget the
law for two or three months. The Mineral is the place
for you."

Alexander Hulings couldn't afford a month or more at
the Mineral Spring; and he had said so With the sharp-
ness that was one of the disturbing symptoms of his con-
dition. He had had several letters, though, throughout
a number of years, from James Claypole, a cousin of his
modier, asking him out to Tubal Cain, the iron forge
which bardy kept Claypole alive; and he might manage
that — if it were not for Hallie Flower. There the con-
versation had come to an inevitable conclusion.

Now, in a flurry of violence that was, nevertheless, the
expression of complete purpose, he had ended his prac-
tice, his only livelihood; and that would — must — end
Hallie.

He had been engaged to her from the day when, together,
they had, with a pretense of formality, opened his office
in Eastlake. He had determined not to marry until he
made a thousand dollars in a year; and, as year after

£113]

GOLD AND IRON

year slipped by without his achieving that amount, their
engagement had come to resemble the imemotional con-
tact of a union without sex. Lately Hallie had seemed
almost content with duties in her parental home and
the three evenings weekly that Alexander spent with her
in the formal propriety of a front room.

His own feelings defied analysis; but it seemed to him
that, frankly surveyed, even his love for Hallie Flower
had been swallowed up in the tide of irritability rising
about him. He felt no active sorrow at the knowledge
that he was about to relinquish all daim upon her; his
pride stirred resentfully; the evening promised to be un-
comfortable — but that was all.

The room swam about him in a manner that had grown
hatefully familiar; he swayed in his chair; and his hands
were first numb with cold and then wet by perspiration.
A sinking fear fastened on him, an inchoate dread that
he fought bitterly. It wasn't death from which Alexander
Hulings shuddered, but a crawling sensation that turned
his knees to dust. He was a slight man, with narrow
shoulders and dose-swinging arms, but as rigidly erect
as an iron bar; his mentality was like that too, and he
particularly detested the variety of nerves that had settled
on him.

A form blocked the doorway, accentuating the dusk that
had swiftly gathered in the office, and Veneada entered.
His neckcloth was, as always, carelessly folded, and his
collar hid in rolls of fat; a cloak was thrown back from
a wide girth and he wore an incongruous pair of buff
linen trousers.

*' What's this — mooning in the dark? " he demanded.

[114]

TUBAL CAIN

'' Thought you hadn't locked the office door. Come out;
fill your lungs with the spring and your stomach with
supper."

Without reply, Alexander Hulings followed the other
into the street

*' I am going to Hallie's/' he said in response to Vene-
ada's unspoken query.

Suddenly he felt tiiat he must conclude ever3rthing at
once and get away; where and from what he didn't know.
It was not his evening to see Hallie and she would be
surprised when he came up on the step. The Flowers had
supper at five; it would be over now, and Hallie finished
with the dishes and free. Alexander briefly told
Veneada his double decision.

"In a way," the other said, "Fm glad. You must
get away for a little an3nvay; and you are accomplishing
nothing here in Eastlake. You are a rotten lawyer,
Alexander; any other man would have quit long ago;
but your infernal stubbornness held you to it. You are
not a small-town man. You see life in a different, a
wider way. And if you could only come on something
where your pig-headedness counted there's no saying where
you'd reach. I'm sorry for Hallie; she's a nice woman,
and you could get along well enough on nine hun-
dred "

" I said I'd never marry until I made a thousand in
a year," Hulings broke in, exasperated.

"Good heavens! Don't I know that?" Veneada re-
plied. " And you won't, you — you mule! I guess I've
suffered enough from your confounded character to know
what it means when you say a thing. I think you're

[115]

GOLD AND IRON

right about this. Go up to that f dlow Claypole and show
him what brittle stuff iron is compared to yourself. Seri-
ously, Alex, get out and work like the devil at a heavy
job; go to bed with your back ruined and your hands
raw. You know 111 miss you — means a lot to me, best
friend."

A deep embarrassment was visible on Veneada; it was
communicated to Alexander Hulings, and he was relieved
when they drew opposite the Flowers' dwelling.

It was a narrow, high, brick structure, with a portico
cap, supported by cast-iron grilling, and shallow iron-
railed balconies on the second story. A gravel path
divided a small lawn beyond a gate guarded by two stone
greyhounds. Hallie emerged from the house with an
expression of mild inquiry at his unexpected appearance.
She was a year older than himself, an erect, thin woman,
with a pale coloring and unstirred blue eyes.

" Why, Alex,** she. remarked, " whatever brought you
here on a Saturday?" They sat, without further im-
mediate speech, from long habit, in familiar chairs.

He wondered how he was going to tell her? And the
question, the difficulty, roused in him an astonishing
amount of exasperation. He regarded her almost vin-
dictively, with covertly shut hands. He must get hold of
himself. Hallie, to whom he was about to do irreparable
harm, the kindest woman in existence! But he realized
that whatever feeling he had had for her was gone for-
ever; she had become merged indistinguishably into the
thought of Eastlake; and every nerve in him demanded a
total separation from the slumberous town fhat had wit-
nessed his legal failure.

[116}

TUBAL CAIN

He wasn't, he knew, nonnal; his intention here was
reprehensible, but he was without will to defeat it Alex-
ander Hulings felt the clumsy hand drawing tighter the
string he had pictured himself as being; an overwhelm-
ing impulse overtook him to rush away — anywhere, im-
mediately. He said in a rapid blurred voice :

"Hallie, this — our plans are a failure — that is, I
am. The law's been no good; I mean, I haven.'t Can't
get the hang of the — the damned "

" Alexl " she interrupted, astonished at the expletive.

" I'm going away," he gabbled on, only half conscious
of his words in waves of giddy insecurity. "Yes; for
good. . . . I'm no use here! Shot to pieces, somehow.
Forgive me. Never get a thousand."

Hallie Flower said in a tone of unpremeditated surprise:

" Then I'll never be married 1 "

She sat with her hands open in her lap, a wistfulness
on her countenance that he found only silly. He cursed
himself, his impotence, bitterly. Now he wanted to get
away; but there remained an almost more impossible con-
summation — Hallie's parents. They were old; she was
an only child.

"Your father " he muttered.

On his feet he swayed like a pendulum. Viselike fin-
gers gripped at the back of his neck. The hand of death ?
Incredibly he lived through a stammering, racking period,
in the midst of which a cuckoo ejaculated seven idiotic
notes from the fretted face of a dock.

He was on the street again; the cruel pressure was re-
laxed; he drew a deep breath. In his room, a select
chamber with a " private " family, he packed and strapped

[117]

GOLD AND IRON

his small leather trunk. There was nowhere among his
belongings a suggestion of any souvenir of the past, any-
thing sentimental or charged with memory. A daguer-
reotype of Hallie Flower, in an embossed black case lined
with red plush, he ground into a shapdess fragment
Afterward he was shocked by what he had done and was
forced to seek the support of a chair. He clenched his
jaw, gazed with stony eyes against the formless dread
about him.

He had forgotten that the next day was Sunday, with
a corresponding dislocation of the train and packet service
which was to take him West. A further wait until Mon-
day was necessary. Alexander Hulings got through that
too; and was finally seated with Veneada in his light
wagon, behind a clattering pair of young Hambletonians,
with the trunk secured in the rear. Veneada was taking
him to a station on the Columbus Railroad. Though
the morning had hardly advanced, and Hulings had
wrapped himself in a heavy cape, the doctor had only a
duster, unbuttoned, on his casual clothing.

" You know, Alex," the latter said — " and let me finish
before you start to object — that I have more money than
I can use. And, though I know you wouldn't just borrow
any for cigars, if there ever comes a time when you need
a few thousands, if you happen on something that looks
good for both of us, don't fail to let me know. You'll
pull out of this depression; I think you're a great man,
Alex — because you are so unpleasant, if for nothing
else."

The doctor's weighty band fdl affectionately on Hul-
ings' shoulder.

[118]

TUBAL CAIN

Hillings involuntarily moved from the other's contact;
he wanted to leave all — all of Eastlake. Once away, he
was certain, his being would clarify, grow more secure.
He even neglected to issue a characteristic abrupt refusal
of Veneada's implied offer of assistance; though all that
he possessed, now strapped in his wallet, was a meager
provision for a debilitated man who had cast safety be-
hind him.

The doctor pulled his horses in beside a small, box-
like station, on flat tracks, dominated by a stout pole, to
which was nailed a ladderlike succession of cross blocks.

Alexander Hulings was infinitely relieved when the
other, after some last professional injunctions, drove away.
Already, he thought, he felt better; and he watched, with
a faint stirring of normal curiosity, the station master
dimb the pole and survey the mid-distance for the ap-
proaching train.

The engine finally rolled fussily into view, with a lurid,
black column of smoke pouring from a thin belled stack,
and dragging a rocking, precarious brigade of chariot
coaches scrolled in bright yellow and staring blue. It
stopped, with a fretful ringing and a grinding impact of
coach on coach. Alexander Hulings' trunk was shoul-
dered to a roof; and after an inspection of the close in-
teriors he followed his baggage to an open seat above.
The engine gathered momentum; he was jerked rudely for-
ward and blinded by a doud of smoke streaked with
flaring cinders.

There was a faint cry at his back, and he saw a woman
dutching a charring hole in her crinoline. The railroad
journey was an insuperable torment; the diminishing

[119]

GOLD AND IRON

crash at the stops, either at a station or where cut wood
was stacked to fire the engine, the dioking hot waves of
smoke, the shouted confabulations between the captain and
the engineer, forward on his precarious ledge — all added
to an excruciating torture of Hulings' racked and shudder-
ing nerves. His rigid body was thrown from side to
side; his spine seemed at the point of splintering from
the pounding of the wooden rails.

An utter moital dejection weighed down his shattered
being; it was not the past but the future that oppressed
him. Perhaps he was going only to die miserably in an
obscure hole; Veneada probably wouldn't tell him the
truth about his condition. What he most resented, with a
tenuous spark of his customary obstinate spirit, was the
thought of never justifying a belief he possessed in his
ultimate power to conquer circumstance, to be greatly
successful.

Veneada, a man without flattery, had himself used that
word " great " in connection with him.

Alexander Hulings felt dimly, even now, a sense of
cold power; a hunger for struggle different from a petty
law practice in Eastlake. He thought of the iron that
James Claypole unsuccessfully wrought; and something
in the word, the implied obdurate material, fired his dis-
integrating mind. " Ironl " Unconsciously he spdce the
word aloud. He was entirely ignorant of what, exactly,
it meant; what were the processes of its fluxing and re-
finement; forge and furnace were hardly separated in his
thoughts. But out of the confusion emerged the one
concrete stubborn fact — iron !

He was drawn, at last, over a level grassy plain, at

[120]

TUBAL CAIN

the far edge of which evening and clustered houses
merged on a silver expanse of river. It was Columbus,
where he found the canal packets l3dng in the terminal-
station basin.

II

The westbound packet, the Hit or Miss, started with a
long horn blast and the straining of the mules at the
towrope. The canal boat slipped into its placid banked
waterway. Supper was being laid in the gentlemen's
cabin and Alexander Hulings was unable to secure a
berth. The passengers crowded at a single long table;
and the low interior, steaming with food, echoing With
clattering china and a ceaseless gabble of voices, confused
him intolerably. He made his way to the open space at
the rear. The soundless, placid movement at once
soothed him and was exasperating in its slowness. He
thought of his journey as an escape, an emergence from
a suffocating doud; and he raged at its deliberation.

The echoing note of a cornet-h-piston sounded from
the deck above; it was joined by the rattle of a drum;
and an energetic band swept into the strains of Zip
Coon. The passengers emerged from supper and gath-
ered on the main deck; the gayly lighted windows streamed
in moving yellow bars over dark banks and fields; and
they were raised or lowered on the pouring black tide of
masoned locks. If it had not been for the infernal per-
sistence of the band Alexander Hulings would have been
almost comfortable; but the music, at midnight, showed no
signs of abating. Money was collected, whisky dis-
tributed; a quadrille formed forward. Hulings could

[121]

GOLD AND IRON

see the women's crinolines, the great sleeves and skirts,
dipping and floating in a radiance of oil torches. He had
a place in a solid bank of chairs about the outer rail, and
sat huddled in his cape. His misery, as usual, increased
with the night; the darkness was streaked with immaterial
flashes, disjointed visions. He was infinitely weary, and
faint from a hunger that he yet could not satisfy. A con-
sequential male at his side, past middle age, with dose
whiskers and a mob of seals, addressed a ccsnmonplace
to him; but he made no reply. The other regarded Hul-
ings with an arrogant surprise, then turned a negligent
back. From beyond came a dear, derisive peal of girl-
ish laughter. He heard a name — Gisda — pronounced.

Alexander Hulings' erratic thoughts returned to iron.
He wondered vagudy why James Claypole had never suc-
ceeded with Tubal Cain. Probably, like so many others,
he was a drunkard. The man who had addressed him
moved away — he was accompanied by a small party; and
another took his vacant place.

" See who that was? ** he asked Hulings. The latter
shook his head morosely. "Well, that," the first con-
tinued impressively, " is John Wooddrop."

Alexander Hulings had an uncertain memory of the
name, connected with

" Yes, sir — John Wooddrop, the Ironmaster. I reckon
that man is the biggest — not only the richest but the big-
gest — man in the state. Thousands of acres, mile after
mile; iron banks and furnaces and forges and mills; hun-
dreds of men and women — all his. Like a European
monarch! Yes, sir; resembles that. Word's law — says
* Come here! ' or * Go there!? His daughter is with him

[122]

TUBAL CAIN

too; it's clear she's got the old boy's spirit — and his
lady. They get off at Harmony; own the valley; own
everything about."

Harmony was the place where Hulings was to leave
the canal; from there he must drive to Tubal Cain. The
vicarious boastfulness of his neighbor stirred within him
an inchoate antagonism.

" There is one place near by he doesn't own," he stated
sharply.

" Then it's no good," the other promptly replied. " If
it was Wooddrop would have it. It would be his or
nothing — he'd see to that. His name is Me, or nobody."

Alexander Hulings' antagonism^ increased and illogi-
cally fastened on the Ironmaster. The other's character,
as it had been stated, was precisely the quality that called
to the surface his own stubborn will of self-assertion. It
precipitated a condition in which he expanded, grew
determined, ruthless, cold.

He imagined himself, sick and almost moneyless, and
bound for Cla3^ole's failure, opposed to John Wood-
drop, and got a faint thrill from the fantastic vision. He
had a recurrence of the conviction that he, too, was a
strong man; and it tormented him with the bitter con-
trast between such an image and his actual present self.
He laughed aloud, a thin, shaken giggle, at his belief
persisting in the face of such irrefutable proof of his
failure. Nevertheless, it was firmly lodged in him, like
a thorn pricking at his dissolution, gathering his scattered
faculties into efforts of angry contempt at the laudation
of others.

Veneada and Hallie Flower, he realized, were the only

[123]

GOLD AND IRON

intimates he had gathered in a solitary and, largely em-
bittered existence. He had no instinctive himianity of
feeling, and his observations, colored by his spleen, had
not added to a small opinion of man at large. Always
feeling himself to be a figure of supreme importance, he
had never ceased to chafe at the small aspect he was
obliged to exhibit. This had grown, through an uncom-
fortable sense of shame, to a perpetual disparagement
of all other triumph and success.

Finally the band ceased its efforts, the oil lights burned
dim, and a movement to the cabins proceeded, leaving him
on a deserted deck. At last, utterly exhausted, he went be-
low in search of a berth. They hung four deep about the
walls, partly curtained, while the floor of the cabin was
filled with dothesracks, burdened with a miscellany of
outer garments. One place only was empty — under the
ceiling; and he made a difficult ascent to the narrow space.
Sleep was an impossibility — a storm of hoarse breathings
muttering and sleepy oaths dinned on his ears. The
cabin, closed against the outer air, grew indescribably
polluted. Any former torment of mind and body was
minor compared to the dragging wakeful hours that fol-
lowed; a dread of actual insanity seized him.

Almost at the first trace of dawn the cabin was awak-
ened and filled with fragmentary dressing. The deck
and bar were occupied by men waiting for the appear-
ance of the feminine passengers from their cabin for-
ward, and breakfast. The day was warm and fine. The
packet crossed a turgid river, at the mouths of other
canal routes, and entered a wide pastoral valley.

Alexander Hulings sat facing a smaller, various river;

[124]

TUBAL CAIN

at his back was a barrier of mountains, glossy with early
laurel and rhododendron. His face was yellow and
sunken, and his lips dry. John Wooddrop passed and
repassed him, a girl, his daughter Gisda, on his arm.
She wore an India muslin dress, wide with crinoline, em-
broidered in flowers of blue and green worsted, and a
flapping rice-straw hat draped in blond lace. Her face
was pointed and alert.

Once Hulings caught her glance, and he saw that her
eyes seemed black and — and — impertinent.

An air of palpable satisfaction emanated from the
Ironmaster. His eyes were dark too; and, more than
impertinent, they held for Hulings an intolerable pa-
tronage. John Wooddrop's foot trod the deck with a
solid authority that increased the sick man's smoldering
scorn. At dinner he had an actual encounter with the
other. The table was filling rapidly; Alexander Hulings
had taken a place when Wooddrop entered with his
group and surveyed the seats that remained.

'^ I am going to ask you," he addressed Hulings in a
deep voice, " to move over yonder. That will allow my
family to surround me."

A sudden unreasonable determination not to move
seized Hulings. He said nothing; he didn't turn |bis head
nor disturb his position. John Wooddrop repeated his re-
quest in still more vibrant tones. Hulings did nothing.
He was held in a silent rigidity of position.

" You, sir," Wooddrop pronounced loudly, " are de-
ficient in the ordinary courtesies of travel I And note this,
Mrs. Wooddrop " — he turned to his wife — ^* 1 shall never
again, in spite of Gisela's importunities, move by public

[12S]

GOLD AND IRON

conveyance. The presence of individuals like this -"

Alexander Hulings rose and faced the older, infinitely
more important man. His sunken eyes blazed with such
a feverish passion that the other raised an involuntary
palm.

" Individuals," he added, " painfully afflicted."
Suddenly Hulings' weakness betrayed him; he col-
lapsed in his chair with a pounding heart and blurred
vision. The incidont receded, became merged in the
resumption of the ccsnmonplace clatter of dinner.

Once more on deck, Alexander Hulings was aware that
he had appeared both inconsequential and ridiculous, two
qualities supremely detestable to his pride; and this
added to his bitterness toward the Ironmaster. He de-
termined to extract satisfaction from the other for his
himiiliation. It was characteristic of Hulings that he
saw himself essentially as John Wooddrop's equal; worldly
circumstance had no power to impress him; he was
superior to the slightest trace of the complacent inferiority
exhibited by last night's casual informer.

The day waned monotonously; half dazed with weari-
ness he heard bursts of music; far, meaningless voices;
the blowing of the packet horn. He didn't go down again
into the cabin to sleep, but stayed wrapped in. his doak in
a chair. He slept through the dawn and woke only at
the full activity of breakfast. Past noon the boat tied
up at Harmony. The Wooddrops departed with all the
circumstance of worldly importance, and in the stir of
cracking whip and restive, spirited horses. Alexander
Hulings moved unobserved, with his trunk, to the bank.
Tubal Cain, he discovered, was still fifteen miles dis-

[126]

TUBAL CAIN

taut, and — he had not told James Cla3rpole of his in-
tended arrival — no conveyance was near by. A wagon
drawn by six mules with gay bells and colored streamers
and heavily loaded with limestone finally appeared, go-
ing north, on which Hulings secured passage.

The precarious road followed a wooded ridge, with a
vigorous stream on the right and a wall of hills beyond.
The valley was largely uninhabited. Once they passed
a solid, foursquare structure of stone, built against a hill,
with clustered wooden sheds and a great wheel revolving
under a smooth arc of water. A delicate white vapor
trailed from the top of the masonry, accompanied by
rapid, clear flames.

" Blue Lump Furnace," the wagon driver briefly volun-
teered. "Belongs to Wooddrop. But that doesn't sig-
nify anything about here. Pretty near everything's his."

Alexander Hulings looked back, with an involuntary
deep interest in the furnace. The word " iron " again vi-
brated, almost clanged, through his mind. It temporarily
obliterated the fact that here was another evidence of
the magnitude, the possessions, of John Wooddrop. He
was consumed by a sudden anxiety to see James Claypole's
forge. Why hadn't the fool persisted, succeeded?

"Tubal Cain's in there." The mules were stopped.
"What there is of itl Four bits will be enough."

He was left beside his trunk on the roadside, clouded by
the dust of the wagon's departure. Behind him, in the
direction indicated, the ground, covered with underbrush,
fell away to a glint of water and some obscure structures.
Dragging his baggage he made his way down to a long
wood^i shed, the length facing him open on two covered

[127]

GOLD AND IRON

heardis, some dflapidated troughs, a suspended ponderous
hammer resting on an anvil, and a miscellaneous heap of
rusting iron implements — long-jawed tongs, hooked rods,
sledges and broken castings. The hearths were cold ; there
was not a stir of life, of activity, anj^here.

Hulings left his trunk in a clearing and explored far-
ther. Beyond a black heap of charcoal, standing among
trees, were two or three small stone dwellings. The first
was apparently empty, with some whitened sacks on a
bare floor; but within a second he saw through the open
doorway the lank figure of a man kneeling in prayer.
His foot was on the sill; but the bowed figure, turned
away, remained motionless.

Alexander Hulings hesitated, waiting for the prayer to
reach a speedy termination. But the other, with upraised,
quivering hands, remained so long on his knees that Hul-
ings swung the door back impatiently. Even then an
appreciable time elapsed before the man inside rose to his
feet. He turned and moved forward, with an abstracted
gaze in pale-blue eyes set in a face seamed and scored by
time and disease. His expression was benevolent; his
voice warm and cordial.

"I am Alexander Hulings," that individual briefly
stated; " and I suppose you're Claypole."

The latter's condition, he thought instantaneously, was
entirely described by his appearance. James Claypole's
person was as neglected as the forge. His stained
breeches were engulfed in scarred leather boots, and a
coarse black shirt was open on a gaunt chest.

His welcome left nothing to be desired. The dwelling
into which he conducted Hulings consisted of a single

[128]

TUBAL CAIN

room, with a small shed kitchen at the rear and two nar-
row chambers above. There was a pleasant absence of
apology for the meager accommodations. James Clay-
pole was an entirely unaffected and simple host.

The late April evening was warm; and after a sup-
per, prepared by Claypole, of thick bacon, potatoes and
saleratus biscuit, the two men sat against the outer wall
of the house. On the left Hulings could see the end of
the forge shed, with the inevitable water wheel hung in
a channel cut frcxn the clear stream. The stream wrinkled
and whispered along spongy banks, and a flicker ham-
mered on a resonant limb. Hulings stated negligently
that he had arrived on the same packet with John Wood-
drop, and Claypole retorted:

'* A man lost in the world! I tried to wrestle with his
spirit, but it was harder than the walls of Jericho."

His eyes glowed with fervor. Hulings regarded him
curiously. A religious fanatic! He asked:

"What's been the trouble with Tubal Cain? Other
forges appear to flourish about here. This Wooddrop
seems to have built a big thing with iron."

"Mammon!" Cla3^ole stated. "Slag; dross! Not
this, but the Eternal World." The other failed to com-
prehend, and he said so irritably. " All that," Cla3^ole
specified, waving toward the forge, " takes the thoughts
from the Supreme Being. Eager for the Word, and a poopr
speller-out of the Book, you can't spend priceless hours
shingling blooms. And then the men left, one after an-
other, because I stopped pandering to their carnal ap-
petites. No one can indulge in rum here, in a place of
mine sealed to God."

[129]

GOLD AND IRON

" Do you mean that whisky was a part of their pay
and that you held it back? " Alexander Hulings demanded
curtly. He was without the faintest sympathy for what
he termed such arrant folly.

"Yes, just that; a brawling, froward crew. Wood-
drop wanted to buy, but I wouldn't extend his wicked
dominion, satisfy fleshly lust"

" It's a good forge, then? "

" None better! I built her mostly myself, when I was
la3dng up the treasure that rusted; stone on stone, log on
log. Heavy, slow work. The sluice is like a city wall;
the anvil bedded on seven feet of oak. It's right 1 But if
I'd known then I should have put up a temple to Je-
hovah."

Hulings could scarcely contain his impatience.

" Why," he ejaculated, " you might have made a fine
thing out of it! Opportunity, opportunity, and you let
it go by. For sheer "

He broke off at a steady gaze from Claypole's calm blue
eyes. It was evident that he would have to restrain any
injudicious characterizations of the other's belief. He
spoke suddenly:

" I came up here because I was sick and had to get
out of Eastlake. I left everything but what little money
I had. You see — I was a failure. I'd like to stay
with you a while; when perhaps I might get on my feet
again. I feel easier than I have for weeks," he real-
ized, surprised, that this was so. He had a conviction
that he could sleep here, by the stream, in the still, flower-
ing woods. " I haven't any interest in temples," he con-
tinued; " but I guess — two men — we won't argue about

[130]

TUBAL CAIN

that. Some allowance on both sides. But I am inter-
ested in iron; I'd like to know this forge of yours back-
ward. IVe discovered a sort of hankering after the
idea; just that — iron. It's a tremendous fact, and you
can keep it from rusting."

Ill

The following morning Claypole showed Alexander
Hulings the mechanics of Tubal Cain. A faint r^ninis-
cent pride shone through the later unworldly preoccupa-
tion. He lifted the sluice gate, and the water poured
through the masoned channel of the forebay and set in
motion the wheel, hung with its lower paddles in the
course. In the forge shed Claypole bound a connection,
and the short haft of the trip hammer, caught in revolv-
ing cogs, raised the ponderous head and dropped it, with
a jarring dang, on the anvil. The blast of the hearths
was driven by water wind, propelled by a piston in a
wood cylinder, with an air chamber for even pressure.
It was all so elemental that the neglect of the last years
had but spread over the forge an appearance of ill re-
pair. Actually it was as sound as the dear oak largely
used in its construction.

James Claypole's interest soon faded; he returned to
his chair by the door of the dwelling, where he labori-
ously spelled out the periods of a battered copy of Addi-
son's " Evidences of the Christian Religion." He broke
the perusal with frequent, ecstatic ejaculations; and when
Hulings reluctantly returned from his study of the forge
the other was again on his knees, lost in passionate prayer.

[131]

GOLD AND IRON

Hulings grew hungry — Claypole was utterly lost in vi-
sions — cooked some bacon and found cold biscuit in the
shedlike kitchen.

The afternoon passed into a tenderly perfumed twi-
light. The forge retreated, apparently through the trees,
into the evening. Alexander Hulings sat regarding it
with an increasing impatience; first, it annoyed him to see
such a potentiality of power lying fallow, and then his
annoyance ripened into an impatience with Claypole that
he could scarcely contain. The impracticable ass I It
was a crime to keep the wheel stationary, the hearths
cdd.

He bad a sudden burning desire to see Tubal Cain
stirring with life; to hear the beat of the hammer forging
iron; to see the dark, still interior lurid with fire. He
thought again of John Wooddrop, and his instinctive dis-
paragement of the accomplishments of others mocked both
them and himself. If he, Alexander Hulings, had had
Claypole's chance, his beginning, he would be more power-
ful than Wooddrop now.

The law was a trivial foolery compared to the fashion-
ing, out of the earth itself, of iron. Iron, the indis-
pensable! Railroads, in spite of the popular, vulgar dis-
belief, were a coming great factor; a thousand new uses,
refinements, improved processes of manufacture were
bound to develop. His thoughts took fire and swept over
him in a conflagration of enthusiasm. By heaven, if
Claypole had failed he would succeed! He, too, would
be an Ironmaster!

A brutal chill overtook him with the night; be shodc
pitiably; dark fears crept like noxious beetles among his

[132]

TUBAL CAIN

thoughts. James Claypde sat, with his hands on bis
gaunt knees, gazing, it might be, at a miraculous golden
city beyond the black curtain of the world. Later Hul-
ings lay on a couch of boards, folded in coarse blankets
and his cape, fighting the familiar evil sinking of his
oppressed spirit. He was cold and yet drenched with
sweat ... if he were defeated now, he thought, if he
collapsed, he was done, shattered! And in his swirling
mental anguish he clung to one stable, cool fact; he saw,
like Claypole, a vision; but not gold — great shadowy
masses of iron. Before dawn the dread receded; he fell
asleep.

He questioned his companion at breakfast about the
details of forging.

"The secret,^' the latter stated, "is — timbei"; wood,
charcoal. It's bound to turn up; fuel famine will come,
imless it is provided against. That's where John Wood-
drop's light. He counts on getting it as he goes. A
fumace'U bum five or six thousand cords of wood every
little while, and that means two hundred or more
acres. Back of Harmony, here, are miles of timber
the old man won't loose up right for. He calculates
no one else can profit with them and takes his own
time."

" What does Wooddrop own in the valleys? "

"Well — there's Sally Furnace; the Poole Sawmill
tract; the Medlar Forge and Blue Lump; the coal holes
on Allen Mountain; Marta Furnace and Reeba Furnace
— they ain't right hereabouts; the Lode Orebank; the
Blossom Furnace and Charming Forges; Middle and Low

Green Forges; the Auspacher Farm "

[133]

GOLD AND IRON

"That will do," Hillings interrupted him moodily;
" I'm not an assessor."

Envy lashed his determination to surprising heights.
Claypole grew uncommunicative, except for vague refer-
ences to the Kingdcxn at hand and the dross of carnal de-
sire. Finally, without a preparatory word, he strode away
and disappeared over the rise toward the road. At sup-
per he had not returned; there was no trace of him when,
inundated with sleep, Hulings shut the dwelling for the
night. All the following day Alexander Hulings ex-
pected his host; he spent the hours avidly studying the
implements of forging; but the other did not appear.
Neither did he the next day, nor the next.

Hulings was surprisingly happy; entirely alone, but
for the hidden passage of wagons on the road and the
multitudinous birds that inhabited the stream's edge, in
the peaceful, increasing warmth of the days and nights
his condition slowly improved. He bought supplies at
the packet station on the canal and shortly became as
proficient at the stove as James Claypole. Through the
day he sat in the mild sunlight or speculated among the
implements of the forge. He visualized the process of
iron making; the rough pigs — there were sows, too, he had
gathered — lying outside the shed h^d come from the
furnace. These were put into the hearths and melted —
stirred perhaps; then — what were the wooden troughs
for? — hammered, wrought on the anvil. Outside were
other irregularly round pieces of iron, palpably doser in
texture than the pig. The forging of them, he was cer-
tain, had been completed. There were, also, heavy bars,
three feet in length, squared at each end.

[134]

TUBAL CAIN

Everything had been dropped apparently at the mo-
ment of James Claypole's absorbing view of another,
transcending existence. Late in an afternoon — it was
May — he heard footfalls descending frcxn the road; with
a sharp, unreasoning regret, he thought the other had re-
turned. But it was a ^ort, ungainly man with a purplish
face and impressive shoulders. "Where's Jim?" he
asked with a marked German accent.

Alexander Hulings told him who he was and all he
knew about Claypole.

" I'm Conrad Wishon," the newcomer stated, sinking
heavily into a chair. " Did Jim speak of me — his head
f orgeman ? No ! But I guess he told you how he stopped
the schnapps. Hal James got religion. And he went
away two weeks ago ? Maybe he'll never be back. This "
— he waved toward the forge — " means nothing to him.

" I live twenty miles up the road, and I saw a Glory-
wagon coming on — an old Conestoga, with the Bible
painted on the canvas, a traveling Shouter slapping the
reins, and a congregation of his family staring out the
back. James would take up with a thing like that in a
shot. Yes, sir; maybe now you will never see him again.
And your mother's cousin! There's no other kin I've
heard of; and I was with him longer than the rest."

Hulings listened with growing interest to the equable
flow of Conrad Wishon's statements and mild surprise.

"Things have been bad with me," the smith contin-
ued. "My wife, she died Thursday before breakfast,
and one thing and another. A son has charge of a
coaling gang on Allen Mountain, but I'm too heavy for
that; and I was going down to Green Forge when I

[135]

GOLD AND IRON

thought I'd stop and see Jim. But, hell I — Jim's gone;
like as not on the Glorywagon. I can get a place at any
hearth," he declared pridefully. " I'm a good forger;
none better in Hamilton County. When it's shingling a
loop I can show 'em alll "

'''Have some supper," Alexander Hulings offered.

They sat late into the fragrant night, with the moon-
light patterned like a grey carpet at their feet, talking
about the smithing of iron. Conrad Wishon revealed the
practical grasp of a life capably spent at a single task,
and Hulings questioned him with an increasing compre-
hension.

" If you had money," Wishon explained, " we could do
something right here. I'd like to work old Tubal Cain.
I understand her."

The other asked: " How much would it take? "

Conrad Wishon spread out his hands hopelessly. " A
lot; and then a creekful back of that! Soon as Wooddrop
heard the trip hammer he'd be after you to close you down.
Do it in a hundred ways — no teaming principally."

Hulings' antagonism to John Wooddrop increased per-
ceptibly; he became obsessed by the fantastic thought of
founding himself — Tubal Cain — triumphantly in the
face of the established opposition. But he had nothing
— no money, knowledge, or even a robust person. Yet
his will to succeed in the valleys hardened into a con-
crete aim . . . Conrad Wishon would be invaluable.

The latter stayed through the night and even lingered,
after breakfast, into the morning. He was reluctant to
leave the familiar scene of long toil. They were sitting
lost in discussion when the beat of horses' hoofs was ar-

[136]

TUBAL CAIN

rested on the road, and a snapping of underbrush an-
nounced the appearance of a young man with a keen,
authoritative countenance.

"Mr. James Claypole?" be asked, addressing them
collectively.

Alexander Huling^ explained what he could of Clay-
pole's absence,

" It probably doesn't matter," the other returned. " I
was told the forge wasn't run, for some foolishness or
other." He turned to go.

** What did you want with him — with Tubal Cain? "
Com^d Wishon asked.

" Twenty-j&ve tons of blooms."

" Now if this was ten years back "

The young man interrupted the smith, with a gesture of
impatience, and turned to go. Hulings asked Conrad
Wishon swiftly:

'' Could it be done here ? Could the men be got ? And
what would it cost? "

"It could," said Wishon; "they might, and a thou-
sand dollars would perhaps see it through."

Hulings sharply called the retreating figure back.
" Something more about this twenty-five tons," he de-
manded.

"For the Penn Rolling Mills," the other crisply re-
plied. "We're asking for delivery in five weeks, but
that might be extended a little — at, of course, a loss on
the ton. The quality must be first grade."

Wishon grunted.

" Young man," he said, " blooms I made would hardly
need blistering to be called sted."

[137]

GOLD AND IRON

" I'm Philip Grere," the newcomer stated, ** of Grere
Brothers, and they're the Penn Rolling Mills. We want
good blooms soon as possible and it seems there's almost
none loose. If you can talk iron, immediate iron, let's
get it on paper; if not I have a long way to drive."

When he had gone Conrad Wishon sat staring, with
mingled astonishment and admiration, at Hulings.

" But," he protested, " you don't know, nothing about
iti"

" You do! " Alexander Hulings told him; he saw him-
self as a mind, of which Wishon formed the trained and
powerful body.

"Perhaps Jim will come back," the elder man con-
tinued.

" That is a possibility," Alexander admitted. " But
I am going to put every dollar I own into the chance of
finishing those twenty-five tons."

The smith persisted: " But you don't know me; per-
haps I'm a rascal and can't tell a puddling furnace from
a chafery."

Hulings regarded him shrewdly.

"Conrad," he demanded, "can Tubal Cain do it?"

" By Gott," Wishon exclaimed, " she can! "

After an hour of dose calculation Conrad Wishon rose
with surprising agility.

" I've got enough to do besides sitting here. Tubal
Cain ought to have twenty men, anyhow; perhaps I can
get eight. There's Mathias Slough, a good hammer-
man. He broke an elbow at Charming and Wooddrop
won't have him back; but he can work still. Hance, a
good nigger, is at my place, and there is another — Surrie.

[138]

TUBAL CAIN

Haines Zerbey, too, worked at refining, but youll need
to watch his rum. Perhaps Old Man Boeshore will lend
a hand, and he's got a strapping grandson — Emanuel.
Jeremiah Stell doesn't know much, but he'd let you cut a
finger off for a dollar." He shook his head gravely.
" That is a middling poor collection."

Alexander Hulings felt capable of operating Tubal
Cain successfully with a shift of blind paralytics. A con-
viction of power, of vast capability, possessed him. Sud-
denly he seemed to have become a part of the world that
moved, of its creative energy; he was like a piece of ma-
chinery newly connected with the forceful driving whole.
Conrad Wishon had promised to return the next day with
the men he had enumerated, and Alexander opened the
small scattered buildings about the forge. There were,
he found, sufficient living provisions for eight or ten
men out of a moldering quantity of primitive bed furnish-
ings, rusted tin and cracked glass. But it was fortunate
that the days were steadily growing warmer.

Wishon had directed him to clean out the channel of
the forebay, and throughout the latter half of the day he
was tearing heavy weeds from the interstices of the stones,
laboring in a chill slime that soon canpletely covered
him. He removed heavy rocks, matted dead bushes,
banked mud; and after an hour he was cruelly, impossi-
bly weary. He slipped and bruised a shoulder, cut
open his cheek; but he impatiently spat out the blood trail-
ing into his mouth, and continued working. His weari-
ness became a hell of acute pain; without manual prac-
tice his movements were dumsy; he wasted what strength
he had. Yet as his suffering increased he grew only more

[139]

GOLD AND IRON

relentlessly methodical in the execution of his task. He
picked out insignificant obstructions, scraped away grass
that offered no resistance to the water power. When he
had finished, the forebay, striking in at an angle from the
stream to the wheel, was meticulously clean.

He stumbled into his dwelling and fell on the bed,
almost instantly asleep, without removing a garment, caked
with filth ; and never stirred until the sun again flooded the
room. He cooked and ravenously ate a tremendous break-
fast, and then forced himself to walk the dusty miles that
lay between Tubal Cain and the canal. His legs seemed
to be totally without joints and his spine felt like a white-
hot bar. At the store about which the insignificant vil-
lage of Harmony clustered he ordered and paid for a great
box of supplies, later carried by an obliging teamster and
himself to the forge.

Once more there, he addressed himsdf to digging out
the slag that had hardened in the hearths. The lightest
bar soon became insuperably ponderous; it wabbled in his
grasp, evaded its purpose. Vicious tears streamed over
his blackened countenance and he maintained a constant
audible flow of bitter invective. But even that arduous
task was n:early accomplished when dark overtook him.

He stripped off his garments, dropping them where he
stood, by the forge shed, and literally fell forward into the
stream. The cold shock largely revived him and he
supped on huge tins of coffee and hard flitch. Imme-
diately after he dropped asleep as if he had been knocked
imconscious by a dub.

At midmoming he heard a rattle of conveyance from the
road and his name called. Above he found a wagon, with-

[140]

TUBAL CAIN

out a top, filled with the sorriest collection of humanity
he had ever viewed, and drawn by a dejected bony horse
and a small wicked mule.

"Here they are," Conrad Wishon announced; "and
Hance brought along his girl to cook."

Mathias Slough, the hammerman, was thin and grey, as
if his face were covered with cobwebs; Hance, Conrad's
"nigger," black as an iron bloom, was carrying upside
down a squawking hen; Surrie, lighter, had a dropped
jaw and hands that hung below his knees; Haines Zerbey
had pale, swimming eyes, and executed a salute with a
battered flat beaver hat; Old Man Boeshore resembled a
basin, bowed in at the stomach, his mouth had sunk on
toothless gums, but there was agility in his step; while
Emanuel, his grandson, a towering hulk of youth, pre-
sented a facial expanse of mingled pimples and down.
Jeremiah Stell was a small, shriveled man, with dead-
white hair on a smooth, pinkish countenance.

Standing aside from the nondescript assemblage of
men and transient garments, Alexander Hulings surveyed
them with cold determination; two emotions possessed him
— one of an almost humorous dismay at the slack figures
on whom so much depended; and a second, stronger con-
viction that he could force his purpose even from them.
They were, in a manner, his first command; his first ma-
terial frcxn which to build the consequence, the success,
that he felt was his true expression.

He addressed a few brief periods to them; and there
was no Warmth, no effort to conciliate, in his tones, his
dry statement of a heavy task for a merely adequate gain.
He adopted this attitude instinctively, without fore-

[141]

GOLD AND IRON

thought; he was dimly conscious, as a principle, that un-
derpaid men were more easily driven than those overfully
rewarded. And he intended to drive the men before him
to the limit of their capability. They had no individual
existence for Alexander Hulings, no humanity; they were
merely the implements of a projection of his own; their
names — Haines Zerbey, Slough — had no more signifi-
cance than the terms bellows or tongs.

They scattered to the few habitations by the stream,
structures mostly of logs and plaster; and in a little while
there rose the odorous smoke and sputtering fat of Hance's
girPs cooking. Conrad Wishon soon started the labor of
preparing the forge. Jeremiah Stell, who had some slight
knowledge of carpentry, was directed to repair the plunger
of the water-wind apparatus. Slough was testing the beat
and control of the trip hammer. Hance and Surrie car-
ried outside the neglected heaps of iron hooks and tongs.
Conrad explained to Alexander Hulings:

" I sent word to my son about the charcoal; hell leave
it at my place, but we shall have to^ haul it from there.
Need another mule — maybe two. There's enough pig
here to start, and my idea is to buy all we will need now
at Blue Lump; they'll lend us a sled, so's we will have
it in case old Wooddrop tries to/:lamp down on us. Ill
go along this afternoon and see the head furnace man. It
will take money."

Without hesitation, Hulings put a considerable part of
his entire small capital into the other's hand. At sup-
pertime Conrad Wishon returned with the first load of
metal for the Penn Rolling Mills contract.

Later Hance produced a wheezing accordion and, rock-

[142]

TUBAL CAIN

ing on his feet, drew out long, wailing notes. He
sang:

" Brothers, let us leave
Bukra Land for Hayti;
There we be receive^
Grand as Lafayette."

** With changes of men," Conrad continued to Alexander
Hulings, " the forges could run night and day, like cus-
tomary. But with only one lot we'll have to sleep. Some-
one will stay up to tend the fires."

In the morning the labor of making the wrought blooms
actually ccxnmenced. Conrad Wishon and Hance at
one hearth, and Haines Zerbey with Surrie at the other,
stood ceaselessly stirring, with long iron rods, the fluxing
metal at the incandescent cores of the fires. Alexander
then saw that the troughs of water were to cod the rapidly
heating rods. Conrad Wishon was relentless in his in-
sistence on long working of the iron. There were, al-
ready, muttered protests. "The dam* stuff was cooked
an hour back! " But he drowned the objections in a sur-
prising torrent of German-American cursing.

Hulings was outside the shed when he heard the first
dull fall of the hammer; and it seemed to him that the
sound had come from a sudden pounding of his expanded
heart. He, Alexander Hulings, was makiQg iron; his
determination, his capability and will were hammering
out of the stubborn raw material of earth a foothold for
himself and a justification ! The smoke, pouring blackly,
streaked with crimson sparks, from the forge shed, sifted
a fine soot on the green-white flowers of a dogwood tree.
A metallic clamor rose; and Emanuel, the youth, stripped

[143]

GOLD AND IRON

to the waist and already smeared with sweat and grime,
came out for a gulping breath of unsullied air.

The characteristics of the small force soon became ap-
parent. Conrad Wishon labored ceaselessly, with an un-
impaired power at fifty apparent even to Alexander's in-
tense self-absorption. Of the others, Hance, the negro,
was easily the superior; his strength was Herculean, his
willingness inexhaustible. Surrie was sullen. Mathias
Slough constantly grumbled at the meager provisions for
his comfort and efforts; yet he was a skillful workman.
When Alexander had correctly gauged Zerbey's daily dram
the latter, too, was useful; but the others were negligible.
They made the motions of labor, but force was absent.

Alexander Hulings watched with narrowed eyes. When
he was present the work in the shed notably improved; all
the men except Conrad avoided his implacable gaze. He
rarely addressed a remark to them; he seemed withdrawn
hem the (^ration that held so much for him. Conrad
Wishon easily established his dexterity at " shingling a
loop."

Working off a part of a melting sow, he secured it
with wide-jawed shingling tongs; and, steadying the
pulsating mass on an iron plate, he sledged it into a bloom.
For ten hours daily the work continued, the hearths
burned, the trip hammer fell and fell. The interior of
the shed was a grimy shadow lighted with lurid flares and
rose and gentian flowers of iron. Ruddy reflections slid
over glistening shoulders and intent, bitter faces; harsh
directions, voices, sounded like the grating of castings.

The oddly assorted team was dispatched for char-
coal, and then sent with a load of blooms to the canal.

[144]

TUBAL CAIN

Hance had to be spared, with Surrie, for that; the forge
was short of labor, and Alexander Hulings joined Conrad
in the working of the metal. It was, he found, exhaust-
ing toil. He was light and unskilled, and the mass on
the hearth slipped continually from his stirring; or dse
it fastened, with a seeming spite, on his rod, and he was
powerless to move it. Often he swung from his feet,
straining in supreme, wrenching effort. His body burned
with fatigue, his eyes were scorched by the heat of the
fires; he lost count of days and nights. They merged im-
perceptibly one into another; he must have dreamed of
his racking exertions, for apparently they never ceased.

Alexander became indistinguishable irom the others, all
cleanness was forgotten; he ate in a stupefaction of weari-
ness, securing with his fingers whatever was put before
him. He was engaged in a struggle the end of which was
hidden in the black smoke perpetually hanging over him;
in the torment of the present, an inhuman suffering to
which he was bound by a tyrannical power outside his
control, he lost all consciousness of the future.

The hammerman's injured arm prevented his working
for two days, and Alexander Hulings cursed him in a
stammering rage, before which the other was shocked and
dumb. He drove Old Man Boeshore and his grandson
with consideration for neither age nor youth; the elder
complained endlessly, tears even slid over his corrugated
face; the youth was brutally burned, but Hulings never
relaxed his demands.

It was as if they had all been caught in a whirlpool, in
which they fought vainly for release — the whirlpool of
Alexander Hulings' domination. They whispered to-

[145]

GOLD AND IRON

gether, he heard fragments of intended revolt; but un-
der^ his cold gaze, his thin, tight lips, they subsided un-
easily. It was patent that they were abjectly afraid of
him. . . . The blooms moved in a small but unbroken
stream over the road to the canal.

He had neglected to secure other horses or mules; and,
while waiting for a load of iron on the rough track
broken from the road to the forge, the horse slid to his
knees, fell over, dead — the last ounce of effort wrung
from his angular frame. The mule seemed impervious
to fatigue; with his ears perpetually laid back and a
raised lip, his spirit, his wickedness, persisted in the face
of appalling toil. The animal's name, Hulings knew, was
Alexander; he overheard Hance explaining this to Old
Man Boeshore:

''That mule's bound to be Alexander; ain't nobody
but an Alexander work like that mule I He's bad too;
he'd lay you cold and go right on about his business."

Old Man Boeshore muttered something excessively bit-
ter about the name Alexander.

" If you sh'd ask me," he stated, " I'd tell you that he
ain't human. He's got a red light in his eye, like ^"

Hulings gathered that this was not still directed at the
mule.

More than half of the order for the Penn Rolling Mills
had been executed and lay piled by the canal. He cal-
culated the probable time still required, the amount he
would unavoidably lose through the delay of faulty equip-
ment and insufficient labor. If James Claypole came
back now, he thought, and attempted interference, he would
commit murder. It was evening, and he was seated list-

[146]

TUBAL CAIN

lessly, with his chair tipped back against the dwelling he
shared with Conrad Wishon. The latter, close by, was
bowed forward, his head, with a silvery gleam of faded
hair, sunk on his breast. A catbird was whistling an
elaborate and poignant song, and the invisible stream
passed with a faint, chdced whisper.

" We're going to have trouble with that girl of Hance's,"
Wishon pronounced suddenly; " she has taken to meet-
ing Surrie in the woods. If Hance comes on them there
will be wet knives! "

Such mishaps, Alexander Hulings knew, offered real
menace to his success. The crippling or loss of Hance
might easily prove fatal to his hopes; the negro, im-
mensely powerful, equable and willing, was of paramount
importance.

"I'll stop thatl" he declared. But the trouble de-
veloped before he had time to intervene.

He came on the two negroes the following morning,
facing each other, with, as Conrad had predicted, drawn
knives, Hance stood still; but Surrie, with bent knees
and the point of his steel almost brushing the grass,
moved about the larger man. Hulings at once threw him-
self between them.

" What damned nonsense's this ? " he demanded. " Get
back to the team, Hance, and you, Surrie, drop your
knife!"

The former was on the point of obeying, when Surrie
ran in with a sweeping hand. Alexander Hulings jumped
forward in a cold fury and felt a sudden numbing slice
across his cheek. He had a dim consciousness of blood
smearing his shoulder; but all his energy was directed

[147}

GOLD AND IRON

on the stooped figure falling away from his glittering
rage.

" Get out I " he directed in a thin, evil voice. " If you
are round here in ten minutes 111 blow a hole through
your skull!"

Surrie was immediately absorbed by the underbrush.

Hulings had a long diagonal cut from his brow across
and under his ear. It bled profusely, and as his temper
receded faintness dimmed his vision. Conrad Wishon
blotted the wound with cobwebs; a doth, soon stained, was
bound about Alexander's head, and after dinner he was
again in the forge, whipping the flagging efforts of his
men with a voice like a thin leather thong. If the labor
was delayed he recognized that the contract would not be
filled. The workmen were wearing out, like the horse.
He moved young Emanuel to the hauling with Hance,
the wagon now drawn by three mules. The hammer-
man's injured arm had grown inflamed and he was prac-
tically one-handed in his management of the trip ham-
mer.

While canying a lump of iron to the anvil the stagger-
ing, ill-assorted group with the tongs dropped their bur-
den, and stood gazing stupidly at the fallen, glowing
mass. They were hardly revived by Hulings' lashing
scorn. He had increased Haines Zerbey's daily dram, but
the drunkard was now practically useless. Jeremiah Stell
contracted an intermittent fever; and, though he still toiled
in the pursuit of his coveted wage, he was of doubtful
value.

Alexander Hulings' body had beccHne as hard as Con-
rad's knotted forearm. He ate huge amounts of half-

[148]

TUBAL CAIN

cooked pork, washed hastily doivn by tin cups of black
coffee, and fell into instant slumber when the slightest
opportunity offered. His face was matted by an un-
kempt beard; his hands, the pale hands of an Eastlake
lawyer, were black, like Hance's, with palms of leather.
He surveyed himself with curious amusement in a broken
fragment of looking-glass nailed to the wall; the old
Hulings, pursued by inchoate dread, had vanished. . .
In his place was Alexander Hulings, a practical iron man!
He repeated the descriptive phrase aloud, with an accent
of arrogant pride. Later, with an envelope from the Penn
Rolling Mills, he said it again, with even more confi-
dence; he held the pay for the blooms which he had —
it seemed in another existence — promised to deliver.

He stood leaning (mi a tree before the forge; within Con-
rad Wishon and Hance were piling the metal hooks with
sharp, ringing echoes. AQ the others had vanished magi-
cally, at once, as if from an exhausted spell. Old Man
Boeshore had departed with a piping implication, sup-
ported by Emanuel, his grandson.

Alexander Hulings was reviewing his material situa-
tion. It was three hundred and thirty dollars better than
it had been on his arrival at Tubal Cain. In addition
to that he had a new store of confidence, of indomitable
pride, vanity, a more actual support. He gazed with
interest toward the near future, and with no little doubt.
It was patent that he could not proceed as he had be-
gun; such combinations could not be forced a second
time. He intended to remain at James Claypole's forge,
conducting it as though it were his own — for the present,
anyhow, but he should have to get an efficient working

[149]

GOLD AND IRON

body; and many additions were necessary — among them
a blacksmith shop. He had, with Conrad Wishon, the
conviction that Claypole would not return.

More capital would be necessary. He was revolving
this undeniable fact when, through the lush June foliage,
he saw an open carriage turn from the road and descend
to the forge clearing. It held an erect, trimly whiskered
form and a negro driver. The former was John Wood-
drop. He gazed with surprise, that increased to a recogni-
tion, a memory, of Alexander Hulings.

" Jim Claypole? " he queried.

" Not here," Hulings replied, even more laconic.

"Nonsense! I'm told he's been running Tubal Cain
again. Say to him — and I've no time to dawdle — that
J<An Wooddrop's here."

"Well, Claypole's not," the other repeated. "He's
away. I'm running this forge — Alexander Hulings."

Wooddrop's mouth drew into a straight hard line from
precise whisker to whisker. " I have been absent," he
said finally. It was palpably an explanation, almost an
excuse. Conrad Wishon appeared from within the forge
shed. " Ah, Conrad I " John Wooddrop ejaculated pleas-
antly. " Glad to find you at the hearth again. Come
and see me in the morning."

" I think I'll stay here," the forgeman replied, " now
Tubal Cain's working."

" Then, in a week or so," the Ironmaster answered im-
perturbably.

All Alexander Hulings' immaterial dislike of Wood-
drop solidified into a concrete, vindictive enmity. He
saw the b^inning of a long, bitter, stirring struggle.

[150]

TUBAL CAIN

IV

" That's about it! " Conrad Wishon affirmed. They
were seated by the doorway of the dwelling at Tubal Cain.
It was night, and hot; and the heavy air was constantly
fretted by distant, vague thunder. Alexander Hulings
listened with pinched lips.

'^ I saw Derek, the founder at Blue Lump, and ordered
the metal; then he told me that Wooddrop had sent word
not to sell a pig outside his own forges. That comes near
closing us up. I misdoubt that we could get men, any-
how — not without we went to Pittsburgh; and that would
need big orders, big money. The old man's got us kind
of shut in here, with only three mules and one wagon —
we couldn'^t make out to haul any distance; and John
Wooddrop picks up all the loose teams. It looks bad,
that's what it does. No credit too; I stopped at Harmony
for some forge hooks, and they wouldn't let me take them
away imtil you had paid. A word's been dropped there
likewise.'*

Hulings could see, without obvious statement, that he
occupied a difficult position; it was impossible seemingly,
with his limited funds and equipment, to go forward and
— ^no backward course existed: nothing but a void, ruin,
the way across which had been destroyed. He turned with
an involuntary dread from the fleeting contemplation of
the past, mingled with monotony and suffering, and set all
his cold, passionate mind on the problem of his future.
He would, he told himself, succeed with iron here. He
would succeed in spite of John Wooddrop — no, because

[ISl]

GOLD AND IRON

of the Ironmaster; the latter increasingly served as a con-
crete object of comparison, an incentive, a deeply involved
spectator.

He lost himself in a gratifying vision, when Conrad's
voice, shattering the facile heights he had mounted, again
fastened his attention on the exigencies of the present

" A lot of money I " the other repeated. " I guess we'll
have to shut down; but I'd almost rather drive mules on
the canal than go to John Wooddrop."

Hulings declared: "You'll do neither, and Tubal
Cain won't shut downl " He rose, turned into the house.

" What's up? " Wishon demanded at the sudden move-
ment.

" I'm going after money,^' Hulings responded from
within — " enough. A packet is due east before dawn."

If the canal boat had seemed to go slowly on his way to
Harmony, it appeared scarcely to stir on his return. There
was no immediate train connection at Columbus, and he
footed the uneven shaded streetways in an endless pattern,
unconscious of houses, trees or passing people, lost in the
rehearsal of what he had to say, until the horn of an im-
mediate departure summoned him to a seat in a coach.

The candles at each end sent a shifting, pale illumina-
tion over the cramped interior, voluminous skirts and pro-
digiously whiskered countenances. Each delay increased
his impatience to a muttering fury; it irked him that he
was unable to de<!:lare himself, Alexander Hulings, to the
train captain, and by the sheer bulk of that name force a
more rapid progress.

Finally in Eastlake, Veneada gazed at him out of a
silent astonishment.

[1S2]

TUBAL CAIN

" You say you're Alex Hulingsl " the doctor exdaimed.
" Some of you seems to be; but the rest is — by heaven,
iron I 111 admit now I was low about you when you left,
in April; I knew you had gimp, and counted on it; how-
ever " The period expired in a wondering exhalatioii.

Veneada pounded on his friend's chest, dug into his arm.
" A horse I " he declared.

Alexander Hulings impatiently withdrew from the
other's touch.

" Veneada," he said, " once you asked me to come to you
if I wanted money, if I happened on a good thing. I
said nothing at the time, because I couldn't picture an
occasion when I'd do such a thing. Well — it's come. I
need money, and I'm asking you for it And, I warn you,
it will be a big sum. If you can't manage it I must go
somewhere else; I'd go to China, if necessary, I'd stop
people, strangers, on the street.

"A big sum," Hulings reiterated somberly; "perhaps
ten, perhaps twenty, thousand. Not a loan," he added im-
mediately, "but an investment — an investment in me.
You must come out to Harmony. I can't explain, it
wouldn't sound convincing in Eastlake. In the valleys,
at Tubal Cain, the thing will be self-evident. I have
made a beginning with practically nothing; and I can go
on. But it will require capital, miles of forest, furnaces
built, Pittsburgh swept bare of good men. No" — he
held up a hardened, arresting palm — " don't attempt to
discuss it now. Come out to Tubal Cain and see; learn
about John Wooddrop and how to turn iron into specie."

At the end of the week there were three chairs canted
against the stone wall of the little house by the stream that

[1S3]

GOLD AND IRON

drove Tubal Cain Forge. Conrad Wishon, with a scarlet
undershirt open on a broad, hairy chest, listened
with wonderment to the sharp periods of Alexander Hul-
ings and Veneada; he heard incredulously mammoth sums
of money estimated, projected, dismissed as commonplace.
Veneada said: /

" I've always believed in your ability, Alex; all that I
questioned was the opportunity. Now that has gone; the
chance is here. YouVe got those sted-wire fingers of
yours about something rich, and you will never let go. It
sounds absurd to go up against this Wooddrop, a despot
and a firmly established power; anyone might well laugh
at me, but I fed a little sorry for the older man. He
doesn't know you.

" You haven't got insides, sympathies, weaknesses, like
the others of us; the thing is missing in you that ordinarily
betrays human men into slips; yes — compassion. You
are not pretty to think about, Alex; but I suppose power
never really is. You know I've got money and you know,
too, that you can have it. As safe with you as in a bank
vault!"

"We'll go back to Eastlake tomorrow," Hulings de-
cided, " lay out our plans and draw up papers. We'll
buy the loose timber quietly through agents; I'll never
appear in any of it. After that we can let out the con-
tracts for two furnaces. I don't know anything about
therp now; but I shall in a week. Wishon had better live
on here, pottering about the forge, until he can be sent to
Pittsburgh after workmen. His pay will start tomorrow."

" What about Tubal Cain, and that fdlow — what's his
name? "

[1S4]

TUBAL CAIN

" Claypde, James. Ill keep a record of what his
forge makes, along with mine, and bank it. Common
safety. Then I must get over to New York, see the
market there, men. I have had letters from an anchor
foundry in Philadelphia. There are nail factories, loco-
motive shops, stove plate, to furnish. A hundred in-
dustries. Til have them here in time — rolling mills you
will hear back in the mountains. People on the packets
will see the smoke of my furnaces — Alexander Hulings'
ironl "

** You might furnish me with a pass, so that I could oc-
casionally walk through and admire," Veneada said dryly.

Hulings never heard him.

" I'll have a mansion," he added abstractedly, " better
than Wooddrop's, with more rooms — — "

"All full, I suppose, of little glorious Hulings! " the
doctor interrupted.

Alexander regarded him unmoved. His thoughts sud-
denly returned to Hallie Flower. He saw her pale,
strained face, her clasped hands; he heard the thin echo
of her mingled patience and dismay: " Then I'll never be
married I " There was no answering stir of regret, re-
morse; she slipped forever out of his consciousness, as if
she had been a shadow vanishing before a flood of hard,
white light.

Greatly to Alexander Hulings' relief, Doctor Veneada
never considered the possibility of a partnership; it was
^s far from one man's wish, for totally different reasons,
as from the other's.

[155]

GOLD AND IRON

" No, iio, Alex," he declared; " I couldn't manage it
Some day, when you were out of the office, the widow or
orphan would come in with the foreclosure, and I would
tear up the papers. Seriously I won't do — I'm fat and
easy and lazy. My money would be safer with me care-
fully removed from the scene."

In the end Alexander protected Veneada with mort-
gages on the timber and land he secured about Harmony
through various agents and under different names. Some
of the properties he bought outright, but in the majority
he merely purchased options on the timber. His holdings
in the latter finally extended in a broad, irregular belt
about the extended local industries of John Wooddrop. It
would be impossible for the latter, when, in perhaps fif-
teen years, he had exhausted his present forests, to cut an
acre of wood within practicable hauling distance. This
accomplished, a momentary grim satisfaction was visible
on Hulings' somber countenance.

He had, however, spent all the money furnished by Doc-
tor Veneada, without setting the foundations of the fur-
naces and forges he had projected, and he decided not to go
to his friend for more. There were two other possible
sources of supply: allied iron industries — the obvious
recourse, and the railroads. The latter seemed precarious;
ever3rwhere people, and even print, were ridiculing the final
usefulness of steam traffic; it was judged unfit for heavy
and continuous hauling — a toy of inventors and fantastic
dreaming; canals were the obviously solid means of trans-
pcnrtation. But Alexander Hulings became fanatical over-
night in his belief in the coming empire of steam.

With a small carpetbag, holding his various deeds and

[156]

TUBAL CAIN

options, and mentaUy formulating a vigorous expression of
his opinions and projections, he sought the doubtful capital
behind the Columbus Transportation Line. When, a
month later, he returned to Tubal Cain, it was in the
company of an expert industrial engineer, and with credit
sufficient for the completion' of his present plans. He had
been gone a month, but he appeared older by several years.
Alexander Hulings had forced from reluctant sources,
from men more wily, if less adamantine, than himself,
what he desired; but in return he had been obliged to grant
ahnost impossibly favorable contracts and preferences. A
tremendous pressure of responsibility had gathered about
him; but under it he was still erect, coldly confident, and
carried himself with the special pugnacity of small, vain
men.

On a day in early June, a year from the delivery of his
first contract at Tubal Cain, he stood in a fine rain at the
side of a light road wagon, drawn, like John Wooddrop's,
by two sweeping young horses, held by a negro, and
watched the final courses of his new furnace. The fur-
nace itself, a solid structure of unmasoned stone, rose above
thirty feet, narrowed at the top to almost half the width of
its base. Directly against its face and hearth was built the
single high interior of the cast house, into which the metal
would be run on a sand pig bed and harden into commer-
cial iron.

On the hill rising abruptly at the back was the long wall
of the coal bouse, with an entrance and runway leading to
the opening at the top of the furnace stack. Lower down,
the curving, artificial channel of the forebay swept to
where the water would f aU on a ponderous overshot wheel

[1S7]

GOLD AND IRON

and drive the great tilted bellows that blasted the furnace.

The latter, Alexander knew, must have a name. Most
furnaces were called after favorite women; but there
were no such sentimental objects in his existence. He re-
called the name of the canal packet that had first drawn
him out to Harmony — the HU or Miss. No casual title
such as that would fit an enterprise of his. He thought of
Tubal Cain, and then of Jim Claypole. He owed the
latter something; and yet he wouldn't have another man's
name. . • . Conrad Wishon had surmised that the owner
of Tubal Cain had vanished — like Elijah — on a Glory-
wagon. That was it — Glory Furnace 1 He turned and
saw John Wooddrop leaning forward out of his equipage,
keenly studying the new buildings.

" That's a good job," the Ironmaster allowed; " but it
should be — built by Henry Bayard, the first man in the
country. It ought to do very well for five or six years."

" Fifty," Hulings corrected him.

John Wooddrop's eyes were smiling.

" It's all a question of charcoal," he explained, as
Wishon had, long before. " To be frank, I expect a little
difficulty myself, later. It is surprising how generally
\properties have been newly bought in the county. I know,
because lately I, too, have been reaching out. Practically
all the available stuff has been secured. Thousands of
acres above you, here, have been taken by a company,
hotel — or something of the sort."

" The Venealic Company," Hulings said; and then, in
swelling pride, he added: "That's mel " Wooddrop's
gaze hardened. Alexander Hulings thought the other's
face grew paler. His importance, his sense of acc(»n-

[158]

TUBAL CAIN

plishment, of vindication, completely overwhelmed him.
" And beyond, it is me I " he cried. " And back of that,
again! " He made a wide, sweeping gesture with his
arm. " Over there; the Hezekiah Mills tract ^that's me
too; and the East purchase, and on and rtund. Fifty —
this Glory Furnace, and ten others, could run on for a
century.

" You Ve been the big thing here — even in the state.
You are known on canal boats, people point you out; yes,
and patronize me. You did that yourself — you and
your women. But it is over; I'm coming now, and John
Wooddrop's going. You are going with those same canal
boats, and Alexander Hulings is rising with the rail-
roads."

He pounded himself on the chest, and then suddenly
stopped. It was the only impassioned speech, even in the
disastrous pursuit of the law, that he had ever made;
and it had an impotent, foolish ring in his ear, his delib-
erate brain. He instantly disowned all that part of him
which had betrayed his ordinary silent caution into such
windy boasting. Hulings was momentarily abashed be-
fore the steady scrutiny of John Wooddrop.

" When I first saw you," the latter pronounced, " I
concluded that you were unbalanced. Now I think that
you are a maniac! "

He spoke curtly to his driver, and was sharply whirled
away through the grey-green veil of rain and foliage.
Hulings was left with an aggravated discontent and bitter-
ness toward the older man, who seemed to have the ability
always to place him in an unfavorable light.

[159]

GOLD AND IRON

VI

Doctor Veneada returned for the first run of metal from
Glory Furnace; there were two representatives of the other
capital invested, and, with Alexander Hulings, Conrad
Wishon, and some local spectators, they stood in the gloom
of the cast house waiting for the founder to tap the clay
sealing of the hearth. Suddenly there was a rush of
crackling white light, pouring sparks, and the boiling
liquid flooded out, rapidly filling the molds radiating from
the channels stamped in the sand bed. The incandescent
iron flushed from silver to darker, warmer tones.

A corresponding warmth ran through Alexander Hul-
ings' body; Glory Furnace was his; it had been con-
ceived by him and his determination had brought it to
an actuality. He would show Wooddrop a new type of
"maniac." This was the second successful step in his
move against the Ironmaster, in the latter's own field.
Then he realized that he, too, might now be called Iron-
master. He directed extensive works operated under his
name; he, Hulings, was the headl Already there were
more than a hundred men to do what he directed, go
where he wished. The feeling of power, of consequence,
quickened through him. Alexander held himself, if pos-
sible, more rigidly than before; he followed every minute
turn of the casting, tersely admonished a laborer.

He was dressed with the utmost care; a marked nice-
ness of apparel now distinguished him. His whiskers
were closely trimmed, his hair brushed high under a glossy
tile hat; he wore checked trousers, strapped on glazed Wd-

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TUBAL CAIN

lington boots, a broaddoth coat, fitted dosdy to his waist,
with a deep rolling collar; severe neckdoth, and a num-
ber of seals an a stiff twill waistcoat. Veneada, as al-
ways, was carelessly garbed in wrinkled silk and a broad
planter's hat. It seemed to Alexander that the other
looked conspicuously older than he had only a few months
back; the doctor's face was pendulous, the pouches be-
neath his eyes livid.

Alexander Hulings quickly forgot this in the immediate
pressure of manufacture. The younger Wishon, who had
followed his father into Alexander's s^rrice, now came
down from the charcoal stacks in a great sectional wagon
drawn by six mules, collared in bells and red streamers.
The pigs were sledged in endless procession from Glory,
and then from a second furnace, to the forges that reached
along the creek in each direction from Tubal Cain. The
latter was worked as vigorously as possible, but Alexander
conducted its finances in a separate, private column; all
the profit he banked to the credit of James Claypde. He
did this not from a sense of equity, but because of a deeper,
more obscure feding, almost a superstition, that such
acknowledgment of the absent man's imwitting assistance
was a safeguard of further good fortune.

The months fled with amazing rapidity; it seemed to
him that one day the ground was shrouded in snow, and
on the next dogwood was blooming. No man in all his
properties worked harder or during longer hours than
Alexander; the night shift at a forge would often see him
standing grimly in the lurid reflections of the hearths;
charcoal burners, eating their flitch and potatoes on an
outlying mountain, not infrequently heard the beat of his

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GOLD AND IRON

horse's hoofs on the soft moss, his domineering voice bully-
ing them for some slight oversight. He in^ired every-
where a dread mingled with grudging admiration; it was
known that he forced every possible ounce of effort f rcxn
workman and beast.

Nevertheless, toward the end of the third summer of his
success he contracted a lingering fever, and he was posi-
tively commanded to leave his labors for a rest and change.
He sat on the porch of the house he had conmienced
building, on a rise overlooking the eddying smoke of his
industries, wrapped in a shawl, and considered the various
places that offered relaxation; he could go to the sea, at
Long Branch, or to Saratoga, the gayety and prodigality of
which were famous. • . • But his thought returned to his
collapse four years before; he heard Veneada coimseling
him to take the water of the Mineral Springs. He had
been too poor then for the Mineral; had he gone there,
he would have arrived unnoticed. By heaven, he would
go there now! It was, he knew, less fashionable than
the other places; its day had been twenty, thirty years be-
fore. But it represented once more his progress, his suc-
cess; and, in the company of his personal servant, his
leather boxes strapped at the back of his lightest road
wagon, he set out the following morning.

Almost sixty miles of indifferent roads lay before him;
and, though he covered, in his weakened condition, far
more than half the distance by evening he was forced
to stay overnight at a roadside tavern. The way was wild
and led through narrow, dark valleys, under the shadow
of uninhabited ridges, and through swift fords. Occa-
sionally he passed great, slow Conestoga wagons, entrained

[162]

TUBAL CAIN

for the West, leather-hcxxled, ancient vehicles, and men on
horses.

The wagon broke suddenly into the smooth, green
valley that held the Mineral Springs. Against a western
mountain were grouped hotels; a bridge, crossing a limpid
stream; pointed kiosks in the Chinese taste; and red gravel
walks. The hotel before which Alexander stopped, a
prodigiously long, high structure painted white, had a
deep porch across its face with slender columns towering up
imbroken to the roof and festooned with trumpet flowers.
A bell rang loudly for dinner, and there was a colorful
flow of crinoline over the porch, a perfimied, flowery stir,
through which he impatiently made his way, followed by
negro boys with his luggage.

Within, the office was high and bare, with a sweeping
staircase, and wide doors opened on a lofty thronged
dining room. Above, he was led through interminable
narrow corridors, past multitudinous closed doors, to a
dosetlike room completely flUed by a narrow bed, a chair
and a comer washstand; this, with scnne pegs in the cal-
cined wall and a bell rope, completed the provisions for
his comfort. His toilet was hurried, for he had been
warned that extreme promptness at meals was more than
desirable; and, again below, he was led by a pompous
negro between long, crowded tables to a place at the farther
end. The din of conversation and clatter of dishes were
deafening. In the ceiling great connected fans were
languidly pulled by black boys, making a doubtful circu-
lation.

His dinner was cold and absurdly inadequate, but the
table claret was palatable. And, after the isolation of

[163]

t
1

iGOLD AND IRON

Tubal Cain, the droves of festive people absorbed him.
Later, at the bar, he came across an acquaintance, a rail-
road director, who pointed out to Alexander what notables
were present There was an Englishman, a lord; there
was Bartram Ainscough, a famous gambler; there —
Alexander's arm was grasped by his companion.

"See that man — no, farther — dark, in a linen suit?
Well, that's Partridge Sinnox, of New Orleans." He grew
slightly impatient at Hulings' look of inquiry. " Never
heard of him I Best-known pistol shot in the States. A
man of the highest honor. Will go out an the slightest
provocation," his voice lowered. "He's said to have
killed twelve — no less. His companion there — from
Louisiana too — never leaves him. Prodigiously rich —
canefidds."

Alexander Hulings looked with small interest at the
dueller and his associate. The former had a lean, tanned
face, small black eyes that held each a single point of
light, and long, precise hands. Here, Alexander thought,
was another form of publicity, different from his own.
As always, his lips tightened in a faint contempt at pre-
tensions other than his, or that threatened his preeminence.
Sinnox inspired none of the dread or curiosity evident in
his cc»npanion; and he turned from him to the inspection of
a Pennsylvania coal magnate.

The colonnade of the hotel faced another cultivated
ridge, on which terraced walks mounted to a pavilion at
the crest; and there, through the late afternoon, he rested
and gazed down at the Springs or over to the village be-
yond. Alexander was wearier than he had supposed; the
iron seemed suddenly insupportably burdensome, a long-

[164]

TUBAL CAIN

ing for lighter, gayer contacts possessed him. He wanted
to enter the relaxations of the Springs.

Dancing, he knew, was customary after supper; and he
lingered over a careful toilet — bright blue coat, tight
black trousers, and fiat, glistening slippers, with a soft
cambric ruffle. Alexander Hulings surveyed his counte-
nance in a scrap of mirror, and saw, with mingled surprise
and discontent, that he — like Veneada — bore unmistak-
able signs of age, marks of strife and suffering; his whis-
kers had a plain silvery sheen. Life, receding unnoticed,
had set him at the verge of middle age. But at least, he
thought, his was not an impotent medial period; if, with-
out material success, he had unexpectedly seen the slightly
drawn countenance meeting him in the mirror, he would
have killed himself. He realized that coldly. He could
never have survived an established nonentity. As it was,
descending the stairs to supper, inmiaculate and disdain-
ful, he was upheld by the memory of his accomplishments,
his widening importance, weight. He actually heard a
whispered oxnment: " Hulings, iron."

VII

After supper the furnishings of the dining room were
swept aside by a troop of waiters, while a number of the
latter, with fiddles and cornets, were grouped on a table,
over which a green cloth had been spread. With the in-
evitable scraping of strings and preliminary unattended
dance, a quadrille was formed. Alexander, lounging with
other exactly garbed males in the doorway, watched with

[165]

GOLD AND IRON

secret envy the participants in the figures gliding frcmi
one to another. As if from another life he recalled their
names; they were dancing Le Pantalon now; La Poulee
would follow; then the Pastorale and L'Et^.

Above the spreading gauze, the tulle and glace silks of
the wcHnen, immense candelabra of glass pendants and
candles shone and glittered; the rustle of crinoline, of light,
passing feet, sounded below the violins and blown comets,
the rich husky voices calling the changes of the quadrille.

He was troubled by an obscure desire to be a center of
interest, of importance, for the graceful feminine world
about him. Sinnox, the man from New Orleans, was
bowing profoundly to his partner; a figure broke up into
a general boisterous gallopading — girls, with flushed
cheeks, swinging curls, spun from masculine shoulder to
shoulder. The dance ended, and the floating, perfumed
skirts passed him in a soft flood toward the porch.

Without, the colonnade towered against a sky bright
with stars; the night was warm and still. Alexander
Hulings was lonely; he attempted to detain the acquaint-
ance met in the bar, but the other, bearing a great bouquet
of rosebuds in a lace-paper cone, hurried importantly away.
A subdued barytone was singing: " Our Way Across the
Mountain, Ho! " The strains of a waltz, the Carlotta-
Grisi, drifted out, and a number of couples answered its
invitation.

A group at the iron railing across the foot of the colon-
nade attracted his attention by its excessive gayety. The
center, he saw, was a young woman, with smooth bandeaux
and loops of black hair, and a goya lily caught below her
ear. She was not handsome, but her features were ani-

[166]

TUBAL CAIN

mated, and her shoulders as finely white and sloping as
an alabaster vase.

It was not this that held his attention, but a sense of
familiarity, a feeling that he had seen her before. He
walked past the group, without plan, and, meeting her
gaze, bowed awkwardly in response to a hesitating but
unmistakable smile of recognition. Alexander stopped,
and she imperiously waved him to join the number about
her. He was in a cold dread of the necessity of admit-
ting, before so many, that he could not recall her name;
but obviously all that she desired was to swell the circle
of her admirers, for, beyond a second nod, she ignored
him.

The Southerner was at her shoulder, maintaining a
steady flow of repartee, and Alexander envied him his
assured presence, his dark, distinguished appearance.
The man who had been indicated as Sinnox' companion
stood by Hulings, and the latter conceived a violent preju-
dice for the other's meager yellow face and spiderlike
hand, employed with a cheroot.

Alexander hoped that somebody would repeat the name
of the girl who had spoken to him. A woman did, l>ut
only in the contracted, familiar form of Gisda. . .
Gisda — he had heard that too. Suddenly she affected
to be annoyed; she arched her flne brows and glanced
about, her gaze falling upon Alexander Hulings. Before
he was aware of her movement a smooth white arm was
thrust through his; he saw the curve of a powdered cheek,
an elevated chin.

"Do take me out of this!" she demanded. "New
Orleans molasses is — well, too thick."

[167]

GOLD AND IRON

Obeying the gentle pressure of her arm, he led her
down the steps to the graveled expanse bdow. She
stepped by a figure of the Goddess of Health, in filigree
on mossy rocks, pouring water from an urn. Her gown
was glazed green muslin, with a mist of white tulle,
shining wifli partides of silver. The goya lily exhaled a
poignant scent

'^ I didn't really leave because of Mr. Sinnox," she ad-
mitted; ** a pin was scratching, and I was devoured with
curiosity to know who you were, where I had met "

Suddenly, in a flash of remembered misery, of bitter
resentment, he recognized her — Gisela, John Wooddrop's
daughter. The knowledge pinched at his heart like mali-
cious fingers; the starry night, the music and gala attire,
his loneliness had betrayed him into an unusual plasticity
of being. He delayed for a long breath, and ttien said
dryly: " I'm Alexander Hulings."

" Not " she half cried, startled. She drew away

from him and her face grew cold. In the silence that fol-
lowed he was conscious of the flower's perfume and the
insistent drip of the water falling from the urn. " But
I haven't met you at all," she said; " I don't in the least
know you." Her attitude was insolent, and yet she un-
consciously betrayed a faint curiosity. " I think you
lacked ddicacy to join my friends — to bring me out
here! "

" I didn't," he reminded her; " you brought me."

Instantly he cursed such clumsy stupidity. Her lower
lip protruded disdainfully.

" Forgive me," she said, dropping a curtsy, " but I
needn't keep you.".

[168]

TUBAL CAIN

^ She swept away across the gravel and up the stairs to
the veranda. It was evident that the group had not sepa-
rated; for ahnost immediately there rose a concerted
laughter, a palpable mockery, drifting out to Alexander.

His face was hot, his hands clenched in angry resent-
ment. More than anything else, he shrunk from being an
object of amusement, of gibes. It was necessary to his
self-esteem to be met with grave appreciation.

This was his first experience of the keen assaults df
social weapons, and it inflicted on him an extravagant suf-
fering. His instinct was to retire farther into the night,
only to return to his room when the hotel was dark, de-
serted. But a second, stronger impulse sent him deliber-
ately after Gisda Wooddrop, up the veranda stairs, and
rigidly past the group gazing at him with curious mirth.

An oil flare fixed above them shone down on the lean,
saturnine coimtenance of Partridge Sinnox. The latter,
as he caught Alexander Hulings' gaze, smiled slightly.
; That expression followed Alexander to his cramped
room; it mocked him as he viciously pulled at the bell
rope, desiring his servant; it was borne up to him on the
faint strains of the violins. And in the morning it
clouded his entire outlook. Sinnox' smile expressed a
contempt that Alexander Hulings' soul could not endure.
From the first he had been resentful of the Southerner's
cheap prestige. He added the qualifying word as he de-
scended to breakfast.

Sinnox, as a dueller, roused Hulings' impatience; he
had more than once faced impromptu death — iron bars in
the hands of infuriated employees, and he had overborne
them with a cold phrase. This theatrical playing with

[169]

GOLD AND IRON

pistols — cheap! Later, in the crowded bar, he was
pressed elbow to elbow with Sinnox and his ccHnpanion;
and he autc»natically and ruthlessly cleared sufficient space
for his comfort. Sinnox' associate said, in remonstrance:

" Sir, there are others — perhaps more considerable."

" Perhaps! " Alexander Hulings carelessly agreed.

Sinnox gazed down on him with narrowed eyes.

" I see none about us," he remarked, " who would have
to admit the qualification."

Alexander's bitterness increased, became aggressive.
He met Sinnox' gaze with a stiff, dangerous scorn:

" In your case, at least, it needn't stand."

" Gentlemen," the third cried, " no more, I beg of you."
He grasped Alexander Hulings' arm. " Withdraw! " he
advised. " Mr. Sinnox' temper is fatal. Beyond a cer-
tain point it cannot be leashed. It has caused great grief.
Gentlemen, I beg "

" Do you mean " Sinnox demanded, and his face

was covered by an even, dark flush to the sweep of his
hair.

" Cheap! " Alexander repeated aloud, sudden and im-
premeditated.

The other's temper rose in a black passion; he became
so enraged that his words were mere unintelligible gasps.
His hand shook so that he dropped a glass of rock-and-
rye splintering on the floor. " At <mce I " he finally articu-
lated. " Scurvy "

" This couldn't be helped," his companion proclaimed,
agitated. '' I warned the other gentleman. Mr. Sinnox
is not himself in a rage, his record is well known. He was

elbowed aside by "

[170]

;«.

TUBAL CAIN

'^ Alexander Hulings! " that individual pronounced.

He was aware of the gaze of the crowding men about
him; already he was conscious of an admiration roused
by the mere fact of his facing a notorious bully. Cheap!
The director joined him.

" By heavens, Hulings, you're in dangerous water. I
understand you have no family."

"None! " Alexander stated curtly.

Hlogically he was conscious of the scent of a goya lily.
Sinnox was propelled from the bar, and his friend reap-
peared and conferred with the director.

"At once!" Hulings heard the former announce.
"Mr. Sinnox . . • unbearable! "

"Have you a case of pistols?" the director asked.
" Mr. Sinnox offers his. I believe there is a quiet open
back of the bathhouse. But my earnest advice to you is
to withdraw; you will be very little blamed; this man is
notorious, a professional fighter. You have only to
say "

Cheap! Alexander thought, fretful at having been in-
volved in such a ridiculous affair. He was even more
deliberate than usual; but, though he was certain of his
entire normality, the faces about him resembled small,
bobbing balloons.

Alexander finished his drink — surprised to find him-
self still standing by the bar — and silently followed the
director through the great hall of the hotel out onto the
veranda, and across the grass to a spot hidden from the
valley by the long, low bulk of the bathing house.

Sinnox and his companion, with a polished mahogany
box, were already there; while a small, curious group con-

[171]

GOLD AND IRON

gregated in the distance. Sinnox' friend produced long
pistols with silken-brown barrels and elegantly carved
ivory stocks, into which he formally rammed powder and
balls. Alexander Hulings was composed; but his fingers
were cold, slightly numb, and he rubbed them together
angrily. Not for an instant did he think that he might
be killed; other curious, faint emotions assailed him —
long-forgotten memories of distant years; Veneada's kindly
hand on his shoulder; the mule called Alexander because
of its aptitude for hard labor; John Wooddrop's daughter.

He saw that the pistols had been loaded; their manipu-
lator stood with them, butts extended, in his grasp. He
began a preamble of custc»nary explanation, which he
ended by demanding, for his principal, an apology frcxn
Alexander Hulings. The latter, making no reply, was
attracted by Sinnox' expression of deepening passion; the
man's face, he thought, positivdy was black. Partridge
Sinnox' entire body was twitching with rage. . . . Curi-
ous, for a seasoned, famous dueller!

Suddenly Sinnox, with a broken exclamation, swung on
his hed, grasped one of the pistols in his second's hands,
and discharged it point-blank at Alexander Hulings.

An instant confused outcry rose. Alexander heard the
term '' Insane! "pronounced, as if in extenuation, by Sin-
nox' friend. The latter held the remaining undischarged
pistol out of reach; the other lay on the ground before
Partridge Sinnox. Alexander's face was as grey as gran-
ite.

" That was the way he did it," he unconsciously pro-
nounced aloud.

He wondered slowly at the fact that he had been

[172]

TUBAL CAIN

unhit. Then, with his hand in a pocket, he walked
stiffly up to within a few feet of Sinnox, and produced a
small, ugly derringer, with one blunt barrel on top of the
Other.

At the stunning report that followed, the vicious, sting-
ing doud of smoke, he seemed to wake. He felt himself
propelled away from the vicinity of the bathhouse; low,
excited exclamations beat upon his ears: ''Absolutely
justified! " " Horrible attempt to murder! " " Get his
nigger and things. Best for the present." He impa-
tiently shook himself free from his small following.

" Did I kill him? " he demanded.

There was an affirmative silence.

In his wagon, driving rapidly toward Tubal Cain, a
sudden sense of horror, weakness, overtook him; the road-
side rocked beneath his vision.

" Mordecai," he said to his coachman, "I — I shot a
man, derringered him."

The negro was unmoved.

"Man 'at fool round you, he's bound to be killed! '*
he asserted. "Yes, sir; he just throwed himself right
away! "

Alexander Hulings wondered how John Wooddrop's
daughter would be affected. At least, he thought grimly,
once more self-possessed, he had put a stop to her laughter
at his expense.

VIII

In the weeks that followed he devoted himsdf ener-
getically to the finishing of the mansion in course of
erection above Tubal Cain. It was an unccxnpromis-

[173]

GOLD AND IRON

ingy square edifice of brick, with a railed belvedere on
the roof, and a front lawn enclosed by a cast-iron fence.
On each side of the path dividing the sod were wooden
Chinese pagodas like those he had seen at the Mineral
Springs; and masoned rings for flower beds, and ferneries,
artificially heaped stones, with a fine spray frcHn con-
cealed pipes. Rearing its solid bulk against the living
greenery of the forest, it was, he told himself pridefully, a
considerable dwelling. Within were high walls and flow-
ery ceilings, Italian marble mantels and tall mirrors,
black carved and gilded furniture, and brilliant hassocks
on thick-piled carpet.

The greater part of the labor was performed by the
many skilled workmen now employed in his furnaces and
forges. He was utterly regardless of cost, obligations, of
money itself. Alexander had always been impatient at
the mere material fact of wealth, of the possession and the
accumulation of sheer gold. To him it was nothing more
than a lever by which he moved men and things; it was
a ladder that carried him above the unnoticed and un-
notable. He could always get money, at need, frcnn men
or iron; to debts he never gave a thought — when they fell
due they were discharged or carried on.

His reason for finishing his dwelling with such elabora-
tion was obscure. Veneada had laughed at him, speaking
of small Hulings, but he harbored no concrete purpose
of marriage; there was even no dominant feminine figure
in his thoughts. Perhaps faintly at times he caught the
odor of a goya lily; but that was probably due to the
fact that lilies were already blocxning in the circular con-
servatory of highly colored glass attached to his veranda.

[174]

TUBAL CAIN

The greater part of the house was darkened, shrouded
in linen. He would see, when walking through the hall,
mysterious and shadowy vistas, lengthened endlessly in
the long mirrors, of dusky carpet, and alabaster and
ormolu, the faint glitter of the prisms hung on the mantel
lamps. Clocks would strike sonorously in the depths of
halls, with the ripple of cathedral chimes. He had a
housekeeper, a stout person in oiled curls, and a number
of excessively humble negro servants. Alexander Hulings
got from all this an acute pleasure. It, too, was a mark
of his success.

He had, below, on the public road, a small edifice of
one room, which formed his office, and there he saw the
vast number of men always consulting with him; he
never took them above to his house. And when they dined
with him it was at the hotel, newly built by the packet
station on the canal — functions flooded with the prodigal
amounts of champagne Hulings thought necessary to his
importance.

Most of his days were spent in his road wagon, in
which he traveled to Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Philadel-
phia, where he had properties or interests. In the cities
of his associates he also avoided their homes, and met them
in hotels; discussed the terms of business in bars or pub-
lic parlors. With women of position he was at once in-
different and ill at ease, constantly certain that he was
not appearing to good advantage, and suspecting their
asides and enigmatic smiles. He was laboriously, stiffly
polite, speaking in complimentary flourishes that some-
times ended in abrupt constraint. At this, afterward, he
would chafe, and damn the superior airs of women.

[175]

GOLD AND IRON

He had returned from such an expedition to Wheeling,
and was sitting in his office, when a vehicle pulled up
before his door. Deliberate feet approached and John
Wooddrop entered. The latter, Alexander realized en-
viously, was an excessively handsome old man; he had a
commanding height and a square, highly colored coun-
tenance, with close white sideburns and vigorous sUver
hair. His manner, too, was assured and easy. He
greeted Alexander Hulings with a keen, open smile.

"Everything is splendid here!" he proclaimed. "I
looked in that chafery down stream, and the metal was
worked like satin. Fine weather for the furnaces — rain*s
ugly; a furnace is like a young girl."

Hulings wandered — contained and suspicious — what
the other wanted. Wooddrop, though they passed each
other frequently on the road, had not saluted him since
the cc»npletion of Glory Furnace. He thought for a
moment that already the older man was feeling the pinch
of fuel scarcity and that he had come to beg for timber.
In such a case Alexander Hulings decided coldly that he
would not sell Wooddrop an ell of forest. In addition
to the fact that the complete success of one or the other
depended ultimately on his rival's failure, he maintained
a personal dislike of John Wooddrop; he had never for-
gotten the hiunUiation forced on him Icmg before, in the
dining room of the packet, the Hit or Miss; he could not
forgive Wooddrop's preeminence in the iron field. The
latter was a legend of the manufacture of iron.

However, any idea of the other's begging privilege was
immediately banished by John Wooddrop's equable bear-
ing. He said:

[176]

TUBAL CAIN

** I want to speak to you, Hulings, about a rather deli-
cate matter. In a way it is connected with my daughter,
Gisela. You saw her, I believe, at the Springs."

Alexander Hulings somberly inclined his head.

" Of course," Wooddrop continued, " I heard about the
difficulty you had with that Louisiana bravo. I under-
stand you acted like a man of spirit and were completely
exonerated; in fact, I had some small part in quashing
legal complications. This was done not on your account,
but because of Gisela, who confided to me that she held
herself in blame. Mr. Hulings," he said gravely, "my
feeling for my daughter is not the usual affection of

parent for child. My wife is dead. Gisela But I

won't open a personal subject with you. I spoke as I
did merely, in a way, to prepare you for what follows.
My daughter felt that she did you a painful wrong; and
I have come, in consequence, to offer you my good will. I
propose that we end our competition and proceed together,
for the good of both. Consolidated, we should inevitably
control the iron situation in our state; you are younger,
more vigorous than myself, and I have a certain prestige.
Sir, I offer you the hand of friendly cooperation."

Alexander Hulings' gaze narrowed as he studied the
man before him. At first, he had searched for an ulterior
motive, need, in Wooddrop's proposal; but he quickly
saw that the proposal had been completely stated. Illogi-
cally he thought of black ringleted hair and glazed muslin;
he heard the echo of water dripping from a stone urn.
Lost in memories, he was silent, for so long that John
Wooddrop palpably grew impatient. He cleared his
throat sharply; but Hulings didn't shift a muscle. Alex-

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ander was thinking now of the order be bad filled the
first summer at Tubal Cain, of his brutal labor and bitter,
deferred aspirations. His rise, alone, had been at the
price of ceaseless struggle; it was not yet consummated;
but it would be — it must, and still alone. Nothing
should rob him of the credit of his achievement; no person
coupled with him might reduce or share his triumph.
What he said sounded inexcusably harsh after the other's
open manner.

" Only," he said — *^ only if the amalgamated indus-
tries bear my name — the Alexander Hulings Iron-
works."

John Wooddrop's face darkened as he comprehended the
implied insult to his dignity and position. He rose, so
violently thrusting back the chair in which be had been
sitting, that it fell with a clatter.

"You brass trumpet! " he ejaculated. "You intoler-
able little bag of vanity! Will you never see yourself
except in a glass of flattery or intolerable self-satisfaction?
It would be impossible to say which you inspire most,
contempt or pity."

Strangely enough, Hulings didn't resent the language
applied to him. He gazed at Wooddrop without anger.
The other's noise, he thought, was but a symptom of his
coming downfall. He was slowly but surely drawing the
rope about the throat of Wooddrop's industries.

" Absolutely the last time," the other stuttered. " Now
you can go to hell on your own high horse! Blinded by
your own fatuousness — don't see where the country is
running. You may impose on others, but I know your

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business, sir; and it's as hollow as a tin plate stove. The
times will soon kick it in."
John Wooddrop stamped away from Hulings in a rage.

IX

That evening Alexander Hulings wondered what Gisela
had told her father; he wondered more vagudy what she
had thought of him — what, if at all, she still thought.
He had had a formal room illuminated for his cigar after
dinner; and he sat, a small, precise figure, with dust-
cdored hair and a somber, intent countenance, clasping a
heavy roll of expensive tobacco, in a crimson plush chair.
The silence, the emptiness about him was filled with rich
color, ponderous maroon draperies, marble slabs and
fretted tulipwood.

It suddenly struck him that, by himself, he was slightly
ridiculous in such opulence. His house needed a mistress,
a creature of elegance to preside at his table, to exhibit
in her silks and jewels another sign of his importance.
Again, as if from the conservatory, he caught a faint poign-
ant perfume.

Gisela Wooddrop was a person of distinction, self-pos-
sessed and charming. There was a subtle flavor in thus
considering her father's daughter — old Wooddrop's girl
— and himself. He rose and walked to a mirror, criti-
cally surveying his countenance — yes, it was well marked
by age, yet it was sharp in outline; his step was springy;
he felt none of the lassitude of increasing years.

He was in his prime. Many young women would pre-

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fer him, his house and name, to the windy pretensions of
youthful scapegoats. A diamond necklace was a convinc-
ing form of courtship. There was no absolute plan in his
thoughts that night; but, in the dry romantic absorption of
the days that followed, a fantastic purpose formed and
increased — he determined to marry Gisela Wooddrop.

He had for this, he assured himself, somQ slight en-
couragement; it was patent that her father had entirely
misread the girl's intent in suggesting an end to the hostili-
ties which had made impossible any social intercourse. She
was interested in him; the duel with Sinnox had captured
her imagination. Women responded surprisingly to such
things. Then she had held that it had been partly her
fault 1 Now it seemed to him that he understood why he
had built so elaborately since his return from the Mineral
Springs; unconsciously — all the while — it had been for
his wife — for Gisela.

There were great practical difficulties in the realiza-
tion of his desire, even in his opportunity to present his
question; to see Gisela Wooddrop long enough and suffi-
cienfly privatdy to explain all he hoped. He was, too,
far past the age of romantic assignations, episodes; he
could no more decorate a moonlit scene beneath a window.
Alexander could not count on adventitious assistance
from emotional setting: his offer could carry only its
grave material solidity. Often he laughed curtly at what
momentarily seemed an absurd fantasy, a madness ap-
proaching senility; then his pride would flood back, re-
assert the strength of his determination, the desirability of
Alexander Hulings.

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X

ThQ occasion evaded him; fhe simplicity of his wish,
of the bald relationship between the Wooddrops and
Tubal Cain, preventing it more surely than a multipli-
cation of barriers. He never considered the possibility
of a compromise with John Wooddrop, a retreat from
his position. Alexander thought of Gisela as a pos-
sible addition to his dignity and standing — of the few
women he had seen she possessed the greatest attrac-
tions — and he gave no thought of a sacrifice to gain
her. She was to be a piece with the rest of his success —
a wife to honor his mansion, to greet a selected few of his
friends, and wear the gold and jewels purchased by the
Hulings iron.

He made no overt attempt to see her, but waited for
opportunity. Meantime he had commenced to think of
her in terms of passionless intimacy. Alexander Hulings
was a solitary man — except for his industrial activity his
mind was empty, and Gisela Wooddrop quickly usurped
the hours after dinner, the long drives through massed
and unscarred forests. He recalled her minutely — every
expression that he had seen, every variation of dress.
Wooddrop's daughter was handsomely provided for; but
Alexander Hulings' wife would be a revelation in luxury.
In New York he bought a pair of India cashmere shawls,
paying a thousand dollars for them, and placed them on
a chair, ready

The weeks multiplied; and he got such pleasure from
the mere thought of Gisela sweeping through his rooms,

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accompanying him to Philadelphia, shining beside him at
the opera, that he became almost reluctant to force the
issue of her choice. He was more than customarily care-
ful with his clothes; his silk hats were immaculate; his
trousers ranged in color from the most delicate sulphur
to astounding London checks; he had his yellow boots
polished with champagne, his handkerchiefs scented with
essence of nolette and almond. For all this, his coun-
tenance was none the less severe, his aptitude for labor
untouched; he followed every detail of iron manufacture,
every improved process, every shift in the market.

The valley about Tubal Cain now resembled a small,
widely scattered town; the dwellings of Hulings' work-
men extended to the property line of the Blue Lump Fur-
nace; roads were cut, bridges thrown across the stream.
The flutter of wings, the pouring birdsong and vale of
green, that Alexander had found had given place to a con-
tinuous, shattering uproar day and night — the charging
of furnaces; the dull thunder of the heavy wagons of
blooms; the jangle of shingling sledges and monotonous
fall of trip hammers — mingled and rose in a stridulous
volume to the sky, accompanied by chemical vapors, up-
rushing cinders and the sooty smoke of the forges. A
company store had been built and stocked, and grimy
troops of laborers were perpetually gathered, ofE shift, by
its face.

Harmony itself, the station on the canal, had expanded;
the new hotel, an edifice of brick with a steep slate roof
and iron grilling, faced a rival saloon and various em-
poria of merchandise. An additional basin had been cut

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TUBAL CAIN

in the bank for the loading of Alexander Hulings' iron
onto the canal boats.

He had driven to the canal — it was early sumnler — to
see about a congestion of movement; and, hot, he stopped
in the hotel for a pint of wine in a high glass with
cracked ice. The lower floor was cut in half by a hall
and stairs; on the right the bar opened onto the narrow
porch, while at the left a ladies' entrance gave way to
the inevitable dark, already musty parlor. The bar was
crowded, and, intolerant of the least curtailment of his
dignity or comfort, he secured his glass and moved across
the hall to the stillness of the parlor.

A wcHnan was standing, blurred in outline, at one of
the narrow windows. She turned as he entered; he bowed,
prepared to withdraw, when he saw that it was Gisela
Wooddrop. She wore white muslin, sprigged in orange
chenille, with green ribbons, and carried a green parasol.
Alexander stood motionless in the doorway, his cham-
pagne in one hand and a glossy stovepipe hat in the
other. He was aware of a slight inward confusion, but
outwardly he was unmoved, exact. Gisela, too, main-
tained the turn of her flexible body, her hands on the top
of the parasol. Under her bonnet her face was pale, her
eyes noticeably bright. Alexander Hulings said:

" Good afternoon ! "

He moved into the room. Gisela said nothing; she
was like a graceful painted figure on a shadowy back-
ground. A complete ease possessed Alexander.

" Miss Wooddrop," he continued, in the vein of a simple
statonent. She nodded automatically. '' This is a happy

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GOLD AND IRON

mteriiig — for me. I can now eipress n^ gratitude for
your concern about a certain unfortunate occurrence at the
Mineral Springs. At the same time, I regret that you
were caused the di^test uneasiness."

She shuddered delicately.

** Nothing more need be said about Aat/' she told him.
** I eiplained to my father; but I was sorry afterward
that I did it, and — and put him to fresh humiliaticm."

** There/' he gravely replied, ** little enough can be dis-
cussed. It has to do wi A things that you would have
limited patience with, strictly an a£fair of business. I
was referring to your susceptibility of heart, a charming
female quality."

He bowed stiffly. Gisda came nearer to him, a sudden
emotion trembling on her features.

" Why don't you end it? " she cried, low and distressed.
*^ It has gone on a long while now — the bitterness be-
tween you; I am certain in his heart father is weary of it,

and you are younger ** She broke off before the

tightening of his lips.

" Not a topic to be developed here," he insisted.

He had no intention, Alexander Rulings thought, of
being bent about even so charming a finger. And it was
well to establish at once the manner in which any future
they might share should be conducted. He wanted a wife,
not an intrigante nor Amazon. Her feeling, color, rapidly
evaporated, and left her pallid, confused, before his calm
demeanor. She turned her head away, her face lost in the
bonnet, but slowly her gaze returned to meet his keen in-
quiry. His impulse was to ask her, then, at once, to
marry him; but he restrained that headlong course, feel-

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TUBAL CAIN

ing fhat it would startle her into flight. As it was, she
moved slowly toward the door.

" I am to meet a friend on the Western packet," she
explained; " I thought I heard the horn."

" It was only freight," he replied. " I should be sorry
to lose this short opportunity to pay you my respects;
to tell you that you have been a lot in my thoughts lately.
I envy the men who see you casually, whenever they
choose."

She gazed at him with palpable surprise gathering in
her widdy opened eyes. " But," she said breathlessly,
"everybody knows that you never address a polite syl-
lable to a woman. It is more speculated on than any of
your other traits."

He expanded at this indication of a widespread dis-
cussion of his qualities.

" I have had no time for merely polite speeches," he
responded. " And I assure you that I am not only com-
plimentary now; I mean that I am not saluting you with
vapid elegance. I am awaiting only a more fitting oc-
casion to say further."

She circled him slowly, with a minute whispering of
crinoline, her gaze never leaving his face. Her muslin,
below her white, bare throat, circled by a black velvet
band, was heaving. The parasol fell with a clatter. He
stooped immediately; but she was before him and snatched
it up, with crimson cheeks.

" They say that you are the most hateful man alive 1 "
she half breathed.

"Who are *they'?" he demanded contemptuously.
" Men I have beaten and women I failed to see. That

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hatred grows with success, with power; it is never wasted
on the weak. My competitors would like to see me fall
into a furnace stack — the men I have climbed over, and
my debtors. They are combining every month to push
me to the wall, a dozen of them together, ydping like a
pack of dogs. But they haven't succeeded; they never
willP' His words were like the chips from an iron
bloom. "They never will," he repeated harshly, "and
I have only begun. I want you to see my house
sometime. I planned a great part of it with you in mind.
No money was spared. ... I should be happy to have
you like it. I think of it as yours."

All the time he was speaking she was stealing by im-
perceptible degrees toward the door; but at his last, sur-
prising sentence she stood transfixed with mingled wonder
and fear. She felt behind her for the op^i doorway and
rested one hand against the woodwork. A ribald clatter
sounded from the bar, and without rose the faint, clear
note of an approaching packet. Her lips formed for
speech, but only a slight gasp was audible; then her
spreading skirts billowed through the opening and she
was gone.

Alexander Hulings found that he was still holding his
silk hat; he placed it carefully on the table and took a
deep drink from the iced glass. He was conscious of a
greater feeling of triumph than he had ever known be-
fore. He realized that he had hardly needed to add the
spoken word to the impression his being had made on
Gisela Wooddrop. He had already invaded her imagina-
tion; the legend of his struggle and growth had taken
possession of her. There remained now only a formal

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TUBAL CAIN

declaration, the outcome of which he felt almost certain
would be in his favor.

Again in his house, he inspected the silk hangings of
the particularly feminine chambers. He trod the thick
carpets with a keen anticipation of her exclamations of
pleasure, her surprise at convenient trifle after trifle. In
the stable he surveyed a blooded mare she might take a
fancy to; he must buy a light carriage, with a fringed
canopy — yes, and put a driver into livery. Women
liked such things.

At dinner he speculated on the feminine palate; he
liked lean mountain venison, and a sherry that left al-
most a sensation of dust on the tongue; but women pre-
ferred sparkling hock and pastry, fruit preserved in white
brandy, and pagodas of barley sugar.

Through the open windows came the subdued clatter
of his forges; the hooded candles on the table flickered
slightly in a warm eddy, while corresponding shadows
stirred on the heavy napery, the Sheffield, and delicate
creamy Belleek of his dinner service — the emblem of
his certitude and pride.

XI

In October Alexander Hulings took Gisela Wooddrop
to the home that had been so largely planned for her en-
joyment. They had been married in a private parlor
of the United States Hotel, in Philadelphia; and after
a small supper had gone to the Opera House to see " Love
in a Village," followed by a musical pasticcio, Gisela's
mother had died the winter before, and she was attended

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GOLD AND IRON

by an elderly distant cousin; no one else was present at
the wedding ceremony except a friend of Gisela's — a
girl who wept copiously — and Doctor Veneada. The
latter's skin hung in loose folds, like a sack partially
emptied of its contents; his customary spirit had evapo-
rated too; and he sat through the wedding supper neither
eatiag nor speaking, save for the forced proposal of the
bride's health.

Gisela Wooddrop and Alexander Hulings, meeting on
a number of carefully planned, apparency accidental oc-
casions, had decided to be married while John Wood-
drop was confined to his room by severe gout. In this
manner they avoided the unpleasant certainty of his re-
fusal to attend his daughter's, and only child's, wedding.
Gisela had not told Alexander Hulings what the aging
Ironmaster had said when necessarily informed of her
purpose. No message had come to Alexander from John
Wooddrop; since the ceremony the Hulings had had no
sign of the other's existence.

Alexander surveyed his wife with huge satisfaction as
they sat for the first time at supper in their house. She
wore white, with the diamonds he had given her about
her firm young throat, black-enamel bracelets cm her
wrists, and her hair in a gilt net. She sighed with deep
pleasure.

'' It's wonderful I " she proclaimed, and then corrobo-
rated all he had surmised about the growth of her interest
in him; it had reached forward and back from the killing
of Partridge Sinnox. " That was the first time," she told
him, " that I realized you were so — so big. You looked
so miserable on the canal boat, coming out here those

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TUBAL CAIN

years ago, that it hardly seemed possible for you merely
to live; and when you started the hearths at Tubal Cain
everyone who knew an3rthing about iron just laughed at
you — we used to go down sometimes and look at those
killing workmen you had, and that single mule and old
horse.

^* I wasn't interested then, and I don't know when it
happened; but now I can see that a time soon came when
men stopped laughing at you. I can just remember when
father first became seriously annoyed, when he declared
that he was going to force you out of the valleys at (mce.
But it seemed you didn't go. And then in a few months
he came home in a dreadful temper, when he found that
you controlled all the timber on the mountains. He said
of course you would break before he was really short of
charcoal. But it seems you haven't broken. And now
I'm married to you; I'm Gisela Hulingsl "

" This is hardly more than the beginning," he added;
" the foundation — just as iron is the base for so much.
I — we — are going on," he corrected the period lamely^
but was rewarded by a charming smile. "Power! " he
said, shutting up one hand, his straight, fine features as
hard as the cameo in his neckcloth.

She instantly fired at his tensity of will.

" How splendid you are, Alexander! " she cried. " How
tremendously satisfactory for a woman to share! You
can have no idea what it means to be with a man like a
stone wall!

" I wish," she said, " that you would always tell me
about your work. I'd like more than an3^ing else to
see you going on, step by step up. I suppose it is ex-

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GOLD AND IRON

traordinary in a woman. I fdt that way about father's
iron, and he only laughed at me; and yet (mce I kept a
forge daybook almost a week, when a clerk was ill. I
think I could be of real assistance to you, Alexander."

He regarded with the prof oundest distaste any mingling
of his, Alexander Hulings', wife and a commercial in-
dustry. He had married in order to give his life a final
touch of elegance and proper symmetry. No, no; he
wanted Gisela to receive him at the door of his mansion,
in fleckless white, as she was now, and jewels, at the
end of his day in the clamor and soot of business and
put it temporarily from his thoughts.

He was distinctly annoyed that her father had per-
mitted her to post the forge book; it was an exceedingly
unladylike proceeding. He told her something of this in
carefully chosen, deliberate words; and she listened
quietly, but with a faint air of disappointment.

" I want you to buy yourself whatever you fancy," he
continued; "nothing is too good for you — for my wife.
I am very proud of you and insist on your making the
best appearance, wherever we are. Next year, if the
political weather clears at all, we'll go to Paris, and you
can explore the mantuamakers there. You got the
shawls in your dressing room? "

She hesitated, cutting uncertainly with a heavy silver
knife at a crystallized citron.

Then, with an expression of determination, she ad-
dressed him again:

" But don't you see that it is your power, your success
over men, that fascinates me; that first made me think of
you? In a way this is not — not an ordinary afEair of

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TUBAL CAIN

ours; I had other chances more commonplace, which my
father encouraged, but they seemed so stupid that I
couldn't entertain them. I love pretty clothes, Alexander;
I adore the things you've given me; but will you mind my
saying that that isn't what I married you for? I am
sure you don't care for such details, for money itself, in
the least. You are too strong. And that is why I mar-
ried you, why I love to think about you, and what I want
to follow, to admire and understand."

He was conscious of only a slight irritation at this
masculine-sounding speech; he must have no hesitation
in uprooting such ideas from his wife's thoughts; they
detracted from her feminine charm, struck at the bottom
of her duties, her privileges and place.

" At the next furnace in blast," he told her with admi-
rable control, ^' the workmen will insist on your throwing
in, as my bride, a slipper; and in that way you can help
the charge."

Then, by planning an immediate trip with her to
West Virginia, he abruptly brought the discussion to a
dose.

Alexander was pleased, during the weeks which fol-
lowed, at the fact that she made no further reference to
iron. She went about the house, gravely busy with its
maintenance, as direct and ef&cient as he was in the
larger realm. Almost her first act was to discharge the
housekeeper. The woman came to Alexander, her fat
face smeared with crying, and protested bitterly against
the loss of a place she had filled since the house was
roofed.

He was, of course, curt with her, and ratified Gisela's

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GOLD AND IRON

decision; but privately he was annoyed. He had not
even intended his wife to discbarge the practical duties of
living — thinking of her as a suave figure languidly
moving from parlor to dining room or boudoir; however,
meeting her in a hall, energetically directing the dusting
of a cornice, in a rare flash of perception he said nothing.

XII

He would not admit, even to himself, that his material
affairs were less satisfactory than they had been the year
before, but such he vaguely knew was a fact. Specula-
tion in Western govenmient lands, large investments in
transportation systems for the present fallow, had brought
about a general conditicm of commercial unrest. Alex-
ander Rulings felt this, not only by the delayed payment
for shipments of metal but in the allied interests he had
accumulated. Merchandise was often preceded by de-
mands for payment; the business of a nail manufactory
he owned in Wheeling had been cut in half.

He could detect concern in the shrewd countenance and
tones of Samuel Cryble, a hard-headed Yankee from a
Scotch Protestant valley in New Hampshire, who had
risen to the position of his chief assistant and, in a small
way, copartner. They sat together in the dingy office on
the public road and silently, grimly, went over invoices
and payments, debts and debtors. It was on such an
occasion that Alexander had word of the death of Doctor
Veneada.

Hulings' involuntary concern, the stirred memories of

[192]

TUBAL CAIN

*

the dead man's liberal spirit and mind — he had been
the only person Alexander Hulings could call friend —
speedily gave place to a growing anxiety as to how
Veneada might have left his affairs. He had been largely
a careless man in practical matters.

Alexander had never satisfied the mortgage he had
granted Veneada on the timber properties purchased
with the other man's money. He had tried to settle the
indebtedness when it had first fallen due, but the doctor
had begged him to let the money remain as it was.

" 1*11 only throw it away on some confounded soft-
witted scheme, Alex," he had insisted. "With you, I
know where it is; it's a good investment."

Now Hulings recalled that the second extension had
expired only a few weeks before Veneada's death, incurring
an obligation the settlement of which he had been impa-
tiently deferring until he saw the other.

He had had a feeling that Veneada, with no near or
highly regarded relatives, would will him the timber
about the valleys; yet he was anxious to have the thing
settled. The Alexander Hulings Company was short of
available funds. He returned to Eastlake for Veneada's
funeral; and there, for the first time, he saw the cousins
to whom the doctor had occasionally and lightly alluded.
They were, he decided, a lean and rapacious crew.

He remained in Eastlake for another twenty-four hours,
but was forced to leave with nothing discovered; and
it was not until a week later that, again in his office, he
learned that Veneada had made no will. This, it seemed,
had been shown beyond any doubt. He rose, walked to a
dusty window, and gazed out unseeingly at an eddy of

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GOLD AND IRON

dead leaves and dry metallic snow in a bleak November
wind.

After a vague, disconcerted moment he shrewdly divined
exactly what would occur. He said nothing to Cryble,
seated with his back toward him; and even Gisela looked
with silent inquiry at his absorption throughout supper.
She never questioned him now about any abstraction
that might be concerned with affairs outside their pleas-
ant life together.

The inevitable letter at last arrived, announcing the
fact that, in a partition settlement of Veneada's estate
by his heirs, it was necessary to settle the expired
mortgage. It could not have come, he realized, at a more
inconvenient time.

He was forced to discuss the position with Cryble; and
the latter heard him to the end with a narrowed, search-
ing vision.

" That money out of the business now might leave us
on the bank/' he asserted. '' As I see it, there's but one
thing to do — go over all the timber, judge what we
actually will need for coaling, buy that — or, if we must,
put another mortgage on it — and let the rest, a good
two-thirds, go."

This, Alexander acknowledged to himself, was the
logical if not the only course. And then John Wood-
drop would purchase the remainder; he would have enough
charcoal to keep up his local industries beyond his own
life and another. All his — Alexander's — planning,
aspirations, sacrifice, would have been for nothing. He
would never, like John Wooddrop, be a great industrial
despot, or command, as he had so often pictured, the iron

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TUBAL CAIN

situation of the state. To do that, he would have to cosi-
trol all the iroa the fumes of whose manufacture stained
the sky for miles about Harmony. If Wooddrop re-
covered an adequate fuel supply Alexander Hulings would
never occupy more than a position of secondary impor-
tance.

There was a bare possibility of his retaining all the
tracts again by a second mortgage; but as he examined
that, it sank from a potentiality to a thing without sub-
stance. It would invite an investigation, a public glean-
ing of facts, that he must now avoid. His pride could
not contemplate the publication of the undeniable truth
— that what he had so laboriously built up stood on an
insecure foundation.

" It is necessary," he said stiffly, " in order to realize
on my calculations, that I continue to hold all the timber
at present in my name."

" And that's where you make a misjudgment," Cryble
declared, equally blunt. *^ I can see clear enough that
you are letting your personal feeling affect your business
sense. There is room enough in Pennsylvania for both
you and old Wooddrop. Anyhow, there's got to be some-
body second in the parade, and that is a whole lot better
than tail end."

Alexander Hulings nodded absently; Cryble's philoso-
phy was correct for a derk, an assistant, but Alexander
Hulings felt the tyranny of a wider necessity. He won-
dered where he could get the money to satisfy the claim
of the doctor's heirs. His manufacturing interests in West
Virginia, depreciated as they were at present, would about
cover the debt Ordinarily they were worth a third

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GOLD AND IRON

more; and in ten years they would double in value. He
relentlessly crushed all regret at parting with what was
now his best property and promptly made arrangements
to secure permanently the timberland.

Soon, he felt, John Wooddrop must feel the pinch of
fuel shortage; and Alexander awaited such development
with keen attention. As he had anticipated, when driv-
ing from the canal, he saw that the Blue Lump Furnace
had gone out of blast, its workmen dispersed. Gisela, the
day before, had been to see her father; and he was curious
to hear what she might report. A feeling of coming
triumph, of inevitable, worldly expansion, settled com-
fortably over him, and he regarded his wife pleasantly
through a curtain of cigar smoke.

They were seated in a parlor, already shadowy in an
early February dusk; coals were burning brightly in a
polished open stove, by which Gisela was embroidering
in brightly colored wool on a frame. She had the in-
tent, placid expression of a woman absorbed in a small,
familiar duty. As he watched her Alexander Hulings'
satisfaction deepened — young and fine and vigorous,
she was preeminently a wife for his importance and posi-
tion. She gazed at him vacantly, her eyes crinkled at
the comers, her lips soundlessly counting stitches, and a
faint smile rose to his lips.

He was anxious to hear what she might say about John
Wooddrop, and yet a feeling of propriety restrained him
from a direct question. He had not had a line, a word or
message, from Wooddrop since he had married the other's
daughter. The aging man, he knew, idolized Gisela; and
her desertion — for so John Wooddrop would hold it —

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must have torn the Ironmaster. She had, however, been
justified in her choice, he contentedly continued his train
of thought. Gisela had everything a woman could wish
for. He had been a thoughtful husband. Her clothes,
of the most beautiful texture and design, were pinned with
jewels; her deftly moving fingers flashed with rings; the
symbol of his success, his

" My father looks badly, Alexander," she said sud-
denly. *' I wish you would see him, and that he would
talk to you. But you won*t and he won't. He is very
nearly as stubborn as yourself. I wish you could make
a move; after all, you are younger. . . . But then, you
would make each other furious in a second." She sighed
deeply.

" Has he shown any desire to see me? "

" No," she admitted. " You must know he thinks you
married me only to get his furnaces; he is ridiculous about
it — just as if you needed any more! He has been fum-
ing and planning a hundred things since his charcoal has
been getting low."

She stopped and scrutinized her embroidery, a naive
pattern of rose and urn and motto. He drew a long
breath; that was the first tangible indication he had had
of the working out of his planning, the justification of
his sacrifice.

" I admire father," she went on once more, conversa-
tionally; "my love for you hasn't blinded me to his
qualities. He has a surprising courage and vigor for

an Why, he must be nearly seventy! And now

he has the most extraordinary plan for what he calls
^ getting the better of you.' He was as nice with me as

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GOLD AND IRON

possible, but I could see that he thinks you're lost this
time. . . . No, the darker green. Alexander, don't you
think the words would be sweet in magenta ? "

"Well," he demanded harshly, leaning forward,
" what is this plan? "

She looked up, surprised at his hard impatience.

"How queer you are! And that's your iron expres-
sion; you know it's expressly forbidden in the house, after
hours. His plan? I'm certain there's no disloyalty in
telling you. Isn't it mad, at his age? And it will cost
him an outrageous amount of money. He is going to
change the entire system of all his forges and furnaces.
It seems stone coal has been found on his slopes; and he
is going to blow in with that, and use a hot blast in his
smelting."

Alexander Hulings sat rigid, motionless; the cigar in
his hand cast up an unbroken blue ribbon of smoke.
Twice he started to speak, to exclaim incredulously; but
he uttered no sound. It seemed that all his planning had
been utterly overthrown, ruined; in a manner which he
— anyone — could not have foreseen. The blowing in of
furnaces with hard coal had developed since his entrance
into the iron field. It had not been generally declared
successful; the pig produced had been so impure that,
with working in an ordinary or even puddling forge, it
had often to be subjected to a third, finery fire. But he
had been conscious of a slow improvement in the newer
working; he had vaguely acknowledged that sometime
anthracite would displace charcoal for manufacturing
purposes; in future years he might adopt it himself.

But John Wooddrop had done it before him; all the

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square miles of timber that he had acquired with such
difficulty, that he had retained at the sacrifice of his
best property, would be worthless. The greater part of
it could not be teamed across Wooddrop's private roads or
hauled advantageously over a hundred intervening streams
and miles. It was all wasted, lapsed — his money,
dreams!

" It will take over a year," she went on. " I don't
understand it at all; but it seems that sending a hot
blast into a furnace, instead of the cold, keeps the metal
at a more even temperature. Father's so interested you'd
think he was just starting out in life — though, really, he
is an old man." She laughed. *' Competition has been
good for him."

All thrown away; in vain! Alexander Hulings won-
dered what acidulous comment Cryble would make.
There were no coal deposits on his land, its nature for-
bade that; besides, he had no money to change the prin-
cipal of his drafts. He gazed about at the luxury that
surrounded Gisela and himself; there was no lien on the
house, but there still remained some thousands of dollars
to pay on the carpets and fixtures. His credit, at least,
was unimpeachable; decorators, tradespeople of all sorts,
had been glad to have him in their debt. But if any
whisper of financial stringency escaped, a horde would
be howling about his gate, demanding the settlement of
their picayune accounts.

The twilight had deepened; the fire made a ruddy area
in the gloom, into the heart of which he flung his cigar.
His wife embroidered serenely. As he watched her, not-
ing her firm, well-modeled features, realizing her utter

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uncoQsciousnss of all that he essentially at that moment
was, he felt a strange sensation of loneliness, of isola-
tion.

Alexander Hillings had a sudden impulse to take her
into his confidence; to explain everything to her — tjie
disaster that had overtaken his project of ultimate power,
the loss of the West Virginia interest, the tightness of
money. He had a feeling that she would not be a
negligible adviser — he had been a witness of her efficient
management of his house — and he felt a craving for the
sympathy she would instantly extend.

Alexander parted his lips to inform her of all that
bad occurred; but the habit of years, the innate fiber of
his being, prevented. A wife, he reminded himself, a
woman, had no part in the bitter struggle for existence;
it was not becoming for her to mingle with the affairs of
men. She should be purely a creature of elegance, of
solace, and, dressed in India muslin or vaporous silk,
ornament a divan, sing French or Italian songs at a
piano. The other was manifestly improper.

This, illogically, made him irritable with Gisela; she
appeared, contentedly sewing, a peculiarly useless ap-
pendage in his present stress of mind. He was glum again
at supper, and afterward retired into an office he had had
arranged on the ground floor of the mansion. There he
got out a number of papers, accounts and pass books;
but he spent little actual time on them. He sat back in
his chair, with his head sunk low, and mind thronged with
memories of the past, of his long, uphill struggle against
oblivion and ill health.

Veneada was gone; yes, and Conrad Wishon too — the

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TUBAL CAIN

Bupporters and confidants of his beginning. He himself
was fifty years old. At that age a man should be firmly
established, successful and not deviled by a thousand
unexpected mishaps. By fifty a man's mind should be
reasonably at rest, his accomplishment and future secure;
while there was nothing of security, but only combat,
before him.

Wooddrop had been a rich man from the start, when he,
Alexander Hulings, at the humiliating failure of the law,
had had to face life with a few paltry hundreds. No
wonder he had been obliged to contract debts, to enter into
impossibly onerous agreements! Nothing but struggle
ahead, a relentless continuation of the past years; and he
had reached, passed, his prime!

There, for a day, he had thought himself safe, moving
smoothly toward the highest pinnacles; when, without
warning, at a few words casually pronounced over an
embroidery frame, the entire fabric of his existence had
been rent! It was not alone the fact of John Wood-
drop's progressive spirit that he faced, but now a rapidly
accumulating mass of difficulties. He was dully amazed
at the treacherous shifting of life, at the unheralded change
of apparently solid ground for quicksand.

XIII

Though the industries centered about Tubal Cain were
operated and apparently owned by the Alexander Hulings
Iron Company, and Hulings was publicly regarded as
their proprietor, in reality his hold on them was hardly
more than nominal. At the erection of the furnaces and

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supplementary forges he had been obliged to grant such
rebates to the Columbus Transportation interest in re-
turn for capital, he had contracted to supply them at a
minimum price such a large proportion of his possible
output, that, with continuous shifts, he was barely able
to dispose advantageously of a sixth of the year's manu-
facture.

He had made such agreement confident that he would
ultimately control the Wooddrop furnaces; when, doubling
his resources, he would soon free himself from conditions
imposed on him by an early lack of funds. Now it was
at least problematic whether he would ever extend his
power to include the older man's domain. His marriage
with Gisda had only further separated them, hardening
John Wooddrop's resolve that Hulings should never fire
a hearth of his, a determination strengthened by the re-
building of Wooddrop's furnaces for a stone-coal heat.

The widespread land speculation, together with the
variability of currency, now began seriously to depress
the country, and, more especially, Alexander Hulings.
He went to Philadelphia, to Washington, for conferences;
but returned to his mansion, to Gisela, in an increasing
sombemess of mood. All the expedients suggested, the
legalizing of foreign gold and silver, the gradual elimina-
tion of the smaller state-bank notes, an extra coinage,
one after another failed in their purpose of stabilization;
acute panic threatened.

Alexander was almost as spare of political comments
to his wife as he was of business discussion. That, too,
he thought, did not become the female poise. At times,

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TUBAL CAIN

bitter and brief, he condemned the Administration; dur-
ing dinner he all but startled a servant into dropping a
platter by the unexpected violence of a period hurled at
the successful attempts to destroy the national bank.
And when, as — he declared — a result of that, the state
institutions refused specie payment, and a flood of rapidly
depreciating paper struck at the base of commerce, Alex-
ander gloomily informed Gisela that the country was be-
ing sold for a barrel of hard cider.

He had, with difficulty, a while before secured what had
appeared to be an advantageous order from Virginia; and,
after extraordinary effort, he had delivered the iron. But
during the lapsing weeks, when the state banks refused
to circulate gold, the rate of exchange for paper money
fell so far that he lost all his calculated proflt, and a
quarter of the labor as well. The money of other states
depreciated in Pennsylvania a third. In addition to these
things Alexander commenced to have trouble with his
workmen — wages, too, had diminished, but their hours
increased. Hulings, like other commercial operators, is-
sued printed money of his own, good at the company
store, useful in the immediate vicinity of Tubal Cain, but
valueless at any distance. Cryble, as he had anticipated,
recounted the triumph of John Wooddrop.

"The old man can't be beat I " he asserted. "We've
got a nice little business here. Tailed on to Wooddrop's,
we should do good; but you are running it into an iron
wall. You ain't content with enough."

Cryble was apparently unconscious of the dangerous
glitter that had come into Hulings' gaze. Alexander

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GOLD AND IRON

listened quietly until the other had finished, and then
curtly released him from all connection or obligation with
himself. James Cryble was undisturbed.

" I was thinking myself about a move/' he declared.
"This concern is pointed bull-headed onto destruction!
You're a sort of peacock," he further told Hulings; " you
can't do much besides spread and admire your own feath-
ers. But youll get learned."

Alexander made no reply, and the other shortly after
disappeared from his horizon. Cryble, he thought con-
temptuously, a man of routine, had no more salience than
one of the thousands of identical iron pigs run from Glory
Furnace. There commenced now a period of toil more
bitter, more relentless than his first experience in the val-
leys; by constant effort he was able to keep just ahead
of the unprofitable labor for the Columbus Railroad. The
number of workmen grew constantly smaller, vaguely
contaminated by the unsettled period, while his necessity
increased. Again and again he longed to strip off his
coat and superfluous linen and join the men working the
metal in the hearths; he would have felt better if he could
have had actual part in rolling and stamping the pig beds,
or even in dumping materials into the furnace stack.

As it was, consumed by a f^ver of impatience and con-
cern, the manufacture of his iron seemed to require months
between the crude ore and the finished bars and blooms.
He detected a growing impotence among laborers, and
told them of it with an unsparing, lashing tongue. A
general hatred of him again flashed into being; but it was
still accompanied by a respect amounting to fear.

He was approached, at a climax of misfortune, by

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TUBAL CAIN

representatives of the railroad. They sat, their solid
faces rimmed in whiskers, and smooth fingers playing
with portentous seals, in his office, while one of their
number expounded their presence.

" It's only reasonable, Hulings," he stated suavely,
** that one man can't stand up against present conditions.
Big concerns all along the coast have gone to wreck.
You are an exceptional man, one we would be glad to
have in our Company; and that, briefly, is what we have
come to persuade you to do — to merge your activities here
into the railroad; to get on the locomotive with us.

'* Long ago you were shrewd enough to see that steam
transportation was the coming power; and now — though
for the moment we seem overextended — your judgment
has been approved. It only remains for you to ratify
your perspicacity and definitely join us. We can, I
think, offer you something in full keeping with your abil-
ity — a vice presidency of the reorganized company and
a substantial personal interest."

Alexander attended the speaker half absently, though
he realized that probably he had arrived at the crisis of
bis life, his career; his attention was rapt away by dreams,
memories. He saw himself again, saturated with sweat
and grime, sitting with Conrad Wishon against the little
house where they slept, and planning his empire of iron;
he thought again, even further back, of the slough of
anguish from which he had won free; and persistently,
woven through the entire texture, was his vision of iron
and of pride. He had sworn to himself that he would
build success from the metal for which he had such a per-
sonal affinity; that he would be known as the great Iron-

[20S]

GOLD AND IRON

master of Pennsylvania; and that unsubstantial ideal,
tottering now on the edge of calamity, was still more
potent, more persuasive, than the concrete and definite
promises of safety, prosperity, the implied threat, of the
established power before him.

He had an objective oxnprehension of the peril of
his position, his negligible funds and decreasing credit,
the men with accounts clamoring for settlement; he
thought absurdly of a tessellated floor he had lately laid
in his vestibule, the mingled aggression and uncertainty
on every hand; but his subjective self rose up and domi-
nated him. Louder than any warning, was the cry, the
necessity, for the vindication of the triumphant Alexan-
der Hulings, perpetually rising higher. To surrender
his iron now, to enter, a mere individual, however elevated,
into a corporation, was to confess himself defeated, to
tear down all the radiant images from which he had
derived his reason for being.

Hulings thought momentarily of Gisela; he had, it
might be, no right to involve her blindly in a downfall
of the extent that now confronted him. However, he
relentlessly repressed this consideration, together with a
vague idea of discussing with her their — his — position.
His was the judgment, the responsibility, that sustained
them; she was only an ornament, the singer of little airs
in the evening; the decoration, in embroidery and gilt
flowers, of his table.

He thanked the speaker adequately and firmly voiced
his refusal of the offer.

'' I am an iron man," he stated in partial explanation;
" as that I must sink or swim."

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TUBAL CAIN

'* Iron,*' another commented dryly, " is not noted for
its floating properties.''

'' I am disappointed, Hulings," tbe first speaker ac-
knowledged; ''yes, and surprised. Of course we are not
ignorant of tbe condition here; and you must also know
that the company would like to control your furnaces.
We have offered you the palm, and you must be willing
to meet tbe consequences of your refusal. As I said, we'd
like to have you too — energetic and capable; for, as
the Bible reads, * He that is not for me ' "

When they had gone, driving in a local surrey back to
the canal, Alexander Hulings secured his hat and, dis-
missing his carriage, walked slowly down to Tubal Cain
Forge. An increasing roar and uprush of sooty smdkie
and sparks marked the activity within; the water poured
dripping over the water wheel, through the channel he had
cleared, those long years back, with bleeding hands;
strange men stood at the shed opening; but the stream
and its banks were exactly as he had first seen them.

His life seemed to have swung in a circle from that
former day to now — from dilemma to dilemma. What,
after all, did he have, except an increasing weariness of
years, that he had lacked then? He thought, with a grim
smile, that he might find in his safe nine hundred dollars.
All his other possessions suddenly took on an unsubstan-
tial aspect; they were his; they existed; yet they eluded
his realization, brought him none of the satisfaction of an
object, a fact, solidly grasped.

His name, as he had planned, had grown consider-
able in men's ears, its murmur rose like an incense to his
pride; yet, underneath, it gave him no satisfaction. It

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GOLD AND IRON

gave him no sadsf action because it carried no conyiction
of security, no personal corroboration of the mere sound.

What, he now saw, he had struggled to establish was
a good opinion in his own eyes, that actually he was a
strong man; the outer response, upon which he had been
intent, was unimportant compared with the ctiier. And
in the latter he had not moved forward a step; if he had
widened his sphere he had tacitly accepted heavier re-
sponsibilities — undischarged. A flicker hammered on a
resonant limb, just as it had long ago. How vast, eternal,
life was! Conrad Wishon, with his great arched chest
and knotted arms, had gone into the obliterating earth.

Death was preferable to ruin, to the concerted gibes of
littie men, the forgetfulness of big; once, looking at his
greying countenance in a mirror, he had realized that it
would be easier for him to die than fail. Then, with a
sudden twisting of his thoughts, his mind rested on Gisela,
his wife. He told himself, with justifiable pride, that
she had been content with him; Gisela was not an ordi-
nary woman, she had not married him for a cheap and
material reason, and whatever admiration she had had
in the beginning he had been able to preserve. Alexander
Hulings was certain of that; he saw it in a hundred little
acts of her daily living. She thought he was a big man,
a successful man; he had not permitted a whisper of his
difGlculties to fret her serenity, and, by heaven I be thought
with a sharp return of his native vigor, she never should
hear of them; he would stifle them quietly, alone, one by
one.

The idea of death, self-inflicted, a flaccid surrender,
receded before the flood of his returning pride, confidence.

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TUBAL CAIN

Age, he exulted, had not impaired him; if his importance
was now but a shell, he would fill it with the iron of
actuality; he would place himself and Gisda forever be-
yond the threats of accident and circumstance.

XIV

Gisela had been to Philadelphia, and she was unusually
gay, communicative; she was dressed in lavender-and-rose
net, with black velvet, and about her throat she wore a
sparkling pendant that he had never before noticed.

** I hope you'll like it," she said, fingering the dia-
monds; ** the shape was so graceful that I couldn't resist
And you are so generous, Alexander I ''

He was always glad, he told her briefly, to see her in
new and fine adornments. He repressed an involuntary
grimace at the thought of the probable cost of the orna-
ment. She could hardly have chosen a worse time in
which to buy jewels. Not only his own situation but the
whole time was one for retrenchment. The impulse to
tell her this was speedily lost in his pride of her really
splendid appearance. He himself had commanded her
to purchase whatever she fancied; he had explained that
that — the domain of beauty — was exclusively hers; and
it was impossible to complain at her first considerable
essay.

Here his feeling was rooted in the deepest part of his
being — he was, after all, twenty-five years older than
Gisela; and, as if in a species of reparation for the dis-
crepancy, he owed her all the luxury possible. This
ke had promised her — and himself; and an inability to

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GOLD AND IRON

pnmde gowns and necklaces and gewgaws was a most
humiliating confession of failure, a failure unendurable to
him on every plane. Alexander, too, had told bo* finally
that she had no place in his affairs of business; and after
that be could not very well burden her with the details of
a stupid — and momentary — need for econcxny.

" I got a bouquet holder," she continued — " sweet, in
chased gold, with garnets. And a new prayer book; you
must see that — bound in carved ivory, from Paris." He
listened with a stolid face to her recital, vaguely wonder-
ing how much she had spent; how long the jeweler would
wait for settlement. '' And there was a wonderful Swiss
watch I thought of for you; it rang the hours and "

" That," he said hastily, " I don't need. I have two
excellent watches."

''But you are always ccxnplainingi " she returned,
mildly surprised. '' I didn't get it, but told the man to
put it aside. I'll write if you don't want it."

"Do!"

Suddenly he felt weary, a twinge of sciatica shot
through his hip; be must keep out of the damp cast houses,
with their expanses of wet sand. But actually he was as
good as he had ever been; better, for he now saw clearly
what he must accomplish, satisfy. The present national
crisis would lift; there was already a talk of the resump-
tion of gold payment by the state banks; and the collapse
of a firm associated with him in a rolling mill had thrown
its control into his bands. Steam power had already
been connected, and he could supply the railroad corpora-
tion with a certain number of finished rails direct, adding
slightly to his profit.

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TUBAL CAIN

The smallest gain was important, a scrap of wood
to keep him temporarily afloat on disturbed waters; he
saw before him, dose by, solid land. But meantime more
than one metaphorical wave swept over his head, leaving
him shaken. The Columbus people returned a ship-
ment of iron, wijth the complaint that it was below the
grade useful for their purpose. He inspected the rejected
bars with his head forgeman, and they were unable to
discover the deficiency.

"That's good puddled iron," the forgeman asserted.
" I saw the pig myself, and it could have been wrought
on a cold anvil. Do they expect blister steel? "

Alexander Hulings kept to himself the knowledge that
this was the beginning of an assault upon his integrity, his
name and possessions. At court he could have established
the quality of his iron, forced the railroad to accept it
within their contract But he had no money to expend
on tedious legal processes; and they knew that in the
city.

" We can get a better price for it than theirs," he com-
mented.

The difficulty lay in supplying a stated amount. The
forgeman profanely explained something of his troubles
with labor:

" I get my own anvils busy, and perhaps the furnaces
running out the metal, when the damn charcoal burn-
ers lay down. That's the hardest crowd of niggers
and drunken Dutch that ever cut wood I It's never
a week but one is shot or has his throat cut; and
same of the coal they send down looks like pine
ash."

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GOLD AND IRON

At their hcxne he found Gisela with the draperies of
the dining room in a silken pile on the carpet.

" I'm tired of this room," she announced; " it's too —
too heavy. Those plum-colored curtains almost made me
weep. Now what do you think of this? A white marble
mantel in place of that black, and a mirror with wreaths
of colored gilt. An apple green carpet, with pink satin
at the windows, draped with India muslin, and gold cords,
and Spanish mahogany furniture — that's so much lighter
than this." She studied the interior seriously. '^Less
ormolu and more crystal," Gisela decided.

He said nothing; he had given her the house — it was
her world, to do with as she pleased. The decorating of
the dining room had cost over three thousand dollars.
"And a big Chinese cage, full of finches and rollers."
He got a certain grim entertainment from the accumulat-
ing details of her planning. Certainly it would be im-
possible to find anywhere a wife more unconscious of the
sordid details of commerce. Gisela was his ideal of
elegance and propriety.

Nevertheless, he felt an odd, illogical loneliness fasten-
ing on him here, where he had thought to be most com-
pletely at ease. His mind, filled with the practical diffi-
culties of tomorrow, rebelled against the restriction placed
on it; he wanted to unburden himself of his troubles, to
lighten them with discussion, give them the support of
another's belief in his ability, his destiny; but, with
Cryble gone, and his wife dedicated to purely aesthetic con-
siderations, there was no one to whom he dared confess
his growing predicament.

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TUBAL CAIN

Marriage, he even thought, was something of a failure
— burdensome. Gisela, in the exclusive role of a finch
in an elaborate cage, annoyed him now by her continual
chirping song. He thought disparagingly of all women;
light creatures fashioned of silks and perfume, extrava-
gant. After supper he went directly into his office room.

There, conversely, he was irritated with the accounts
spread perpetually before him, the announcements of
fresh failures, depreciated money and bonds. He tramped
back and across the limited space, longing to share
Gisela's tranquillity. In a manner he had been unjust
to her; he had seen, noted, other women, his own was
vastly superior. Particularly she was truthful, there was
no subterfuge, pretense, about her; and she had courage,
but — John Wooddrop's daughter — she would have.
Alexander Hulings thought of the old man with reluctant
admiration; he was strong; though he, Hulings, was
stronger. He would, he calculated brutally, last longer;
and in the end he would, must win.

XV

Yet adverse circiunstances closed about him like the
stone walls of a cell. The slightest error or miscalcula-
tion would bring ruin crashing about his pretensions. It
was now principally his commanding interest in the rolling
mill that kept him going; his forges and furnaces, short
of workmen, were steadily losing ground. And, though
summer was at an end, Gisela chose this time to divert
the labor of a considerable shift to the setting of new

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GOLD AND IRON

masoned flower beds. He watched the operation somberly
from the entrance of the conservatory attached, like a
parti-colored fantastic glass bubble, to his house.

"It won't take them over four or five days," Gisela
said at his shoulder.

He positively struggled to condemn her foolish waste,
but not a word escaped the barrier of his pride. Once
started, he would have to explain the entire precarious
situation to her — the labor shortage, the dangerous ten-
sion of his credit, the inimical powers anxious to absorb
his industry, the fact that he was a potential failure. He
wished, at any sacrifice, to keep the last from his wife,
convinced as she was of his success.

Surely in a few months the sky would dear and he
would triumph — this time solidly, beyond all assault.
He rehearsed this without his usual conviction; the letters
frcxn the Columbus System were growing more dictatorial;
he had received a covertly insolent communication from
an insignificant tool works.

The Columbus Railroad had written that they were
now able to secure a rail, satisfactory for their purpose
and tests, at a considerably lower figure than he demanded.
This puzzled him; knowing intimately the whole iron
situation, he realized that it was impossible for any firm
to make a legitimate profit at a smaller price than his.
When he learned that the new contracts were being met
by John Wooddrop his face was ugly — the older man,
at a sacrifice, was deliberately, coldly hastening his down-
fall. But he abandoned this unpleasant thought when,
later, in a circuitous manner, he learned that the Wood-
drop Rolling Mills, situated ten miles south of the valleys,

[214J

TUBAL CAIN

were running on a new, secret and vastly economical sys-
tem.

He looked up, his brow scored, from his desk. Con-
rad Wishon's son, a huge bulk, was looking out through
a window, completely blocking off the light. Alexander
Hulings said:

''I'd give a thousand dollars to know something of
that process I "

The second Wishon turned on his heeL

" What's that? " he demanded.

Alexander told him. The other was thoughtful.

" I wouldn't have a chance hereabouts," he pronounced;
'' but I'm not so well known at the South Mills. Per-
haps "

Hulings repeated moodily:

" A thousand dollars ! "

He was skeptical of Wishon's ability to learn anything
of the new milling. It had to do obscurely with the
return of the bars through the rollers without having to be
constantly re-fed. Such a scheme would cut forty men
from the pay books.

A black depression settled over him, as tangible as
soot; he felt physically weary, sick. Alexander fingered
an accumulation of bills; one, he saw, was from the Phila-
delphia jeweler — a fresh extravagance of Gisela's. But
glancing hastily at its items, he was puzzled — " Resetting
diamond necklace in pendant, fifty-five dollars." It was
addressed to Gisela; its presence here, on his desk, was
an error. After a momentary, fretful conjecturing he
dismissed it from his thoughts; wc»nen were beyond com-
prehension.

[215]

GOLD AND IRON

He had now, from the sciatica, a permanent limp; a
cane had ceased to be merely ornamental. A hundred
small details, falling wrongly, rubbed on the raw of his
dejection. The feeling of loneliness deepened about him.
As the sun sank, throwing up over the world a last drip-
ping bath of red-'gold light, he returned slowly to his
house. Each window, facing him, flashed in a broad
sheet of blinding radiance, a callous illumination. A pea-
cock, another of Gisela's late extravagances, spread a bur-
nished metallic plumage, with a grating cry.

But the hall was pleasantly still, dim. He stood for a
long minute, resting, drawing deep breaths of quietude.
Every light was lit in the reception room, where he found
his wife, seated, in burnt-orange satin and bare powdered
shoulders, amid a glitter of glass prisms, gilt and marble.
Her very brilliance, her gay, careless smile, added to his
fatigue. Suddenly he thought — I am an old man with
a young wife! His dejection changed to bitterness.
Gisela said:

'' I hope you like my dress; it came from Vienna, and
was wickedly expensive. Really I ought to wear sap-
phires with it; I rather think 111 get them. Diamonds
look like glass with orange."

Her words were lost in a confused blurring of his mind.
He swayed slightly. Suddenly the whole circumstance
of his living, of Gisela's babbling, became unendurable.
His pride, his conception of a wife set in luxury above
the facts of existence, a mere symbol of his importance
and wealth, crumbled, stripping him of all pretense. He
raised a thin, darkly veined and trembling hand.

" Sapphires 1" he cried shrilly. "Why, next wedk

[216]

TUBAL CAIN

well be lucky if we can buy bread! I am practically
smashed — smashed at fifty and more. This house that
you fix up and fix up, that dress and the diamonds knd

clocks, and — and They are not real; in no time

they'll go, fade away like smoke, leave me — us — bare.
For five years I have been fighting for my life; and now
I'm losing; everything is slipping out of my hands.
While you talk of sapphires; you build bedamned gardens
with the men I need to keep us alive; and peacocks
and "

He stopped as abruptly as he had commenced, flooded
with shame at the fact that he stood before her self-con-
demned; that she, Gisela, saw in him a sham. He mis-
erably avoided her gaze, and was surprised when she
spoke, in an unperturbed warm voice:

"Sit down, Alexander; you are tired and excited."
She rose and, with a steady hand, forced him into a chair.
" I am glad that, at last, you told me this,'* she continued
evenly; " for now we can face it, arrange, together. It
can't be so bad as you suppose. Naturally you are worn,
but you are a very strong man; I have great faith in you."

He gazed at her in growing wonderment; here was an
entirely different woman from the Gisela who had chat-
tered about Viennese gowns. He noted, with a renewed
sense of security, the firmness of her lips, her level, un-
faltering gaze. He had had an unformulated conviction
that in crises women wrung their hands, fainted. She
gesticulated toward the elaborate furnishings, including
her satin array:

" However it may have seemed, I don't care a bawbee
about these things I I never did; and it always annoyed

[217]

GOLD AND IRON

father as it annoyed you.- I am sorry, if yoii like. But
at last we understand each other. We can live, fight, in-
telligently."

Gisela knew; regret, pretense, were useless now, and
curiously in that knowledge she seemed to come closer
to him; he had a new sense of her actuality. Yet that
evening she not only refused to listen to any serious state-
ments, but played and sang the most frothy Italian songs.

XVI

On the day following he felt generally upheld. His
old sense of power, of domination, his contempt for petty
men and competitions, returned. He determined to go to
Pittsburgh himself and study the labor conditions; perhaps
secure a fresh, advantageous connection. He was plan-
ning the details of this when a man he knew only slightly,
by sight, as connected with the coaling, swung uncere-
moniously into his office.

*' Mr. Hulings, sir," he stammered, ** Wishon has been
shot — killed."

" Impossible! " he ejaculated.

But instantly Alexander Hulings was convinced that
it was true. His momentary confidence, vigor, receded be-
fore the piling adversities, bent apparently upon his de-
struction.

" Yes, his body is coming up now. All we know is, a
watchman saw him standing at a window of the Wood-
drop Mills after hours, and shot him for trespassing —
spying on their process."

[218]

TUBAL CAIN

Alexander's first tbought was not of the man just killed,
but of old Conrad, longer dead. He had been a faithful,
an invaluable assistant; without him Hulings would never
have risen. And now he had been the cause of his son's
death! A sharp regret seized him, but he grew rapidly
calm before the excitement of the inferior before him.

'' Keep this quiet for the moment," be commanded.

" Quiet! " the other cried. " It's already known all
over the mountains. Wishon's workmen have quit coal-
ing. They swear they will get Wooddrop's superinten-
dent and hang him."

"Where are they? " Hulings demanded.

The other became sullen, uncommunicative. "We
want to pay them for this," he muttered. "No better
man lived than Wishon."

Alexander at once told his wife of the accident. She
was still surprisingly contained, though pale. " Our men
must be controlled," she asserted. " No further horrors 1 "

Her attitude, he thought, was exactly right; it was
neither callous nor hysterical. He was willing to assume
the burden of his responsibilities. It was an ugly, a re-
grettable occurrence; but men had been killed in bis em-
ploy before — not a week passed without an accident, and
if he lost his head in a welter of sentimentality he might
as well shut down at once. Some men lived, struggled
upward. It was a primary part of the business of suc-
cess to keep alive.

Gisela had correctly found the real danger of their
position — the thing must go no further. The sky had
clouded and a cold rain commenced to fall. He could,
however, pay no attention to the weather; he rose from a

[219]

GOLD AND IRON

partial dinner and departed cm a score of complicated and
difficult errands. But his main concern, to locate and
dominate tbe mobbing charcoal burners, evaded his strain-
ing efforts. He caught rumors, echoed threats; once he
almost overtook them, yet, with scouts placed, they avoided
him.

He sent an urgent message to John Wooddrop, and, un-
certain of its delivery, himself drove in search of the
former; but Wooddrop was out somewhere in his wide
holdings; the superintendent could not be located. A
sense of an implacable fatality hung over him; every
chance turned against him, mocked the insecurity of his
boasted position, deepened the abyss waiting for his in-
evitable fall.

He returned finally, baffled and weary, to his house; yet
still tense with the spirit of angry combat. A species of
fatalism now enveloped him in the conviction that he
had reached the zenith of his misfortunes; if he could sur-
vive the present day. ... A stableman met him at the
veranda.

** Mrs. Hulings has gone," the servant told him. " A
man came looking for you. It seems they had Wood-
drop's manager back in the Mills tract and were going to
string him up. But you couldn't be found. Mrs. Hul-
ings, she went to stop it."

An inky cloud floated nauseously before his eyes — not
himself alone, but Gisela, dragged into the dark whirl-
pool gathered about his destiny I He was momentarily
stunned, with twitching hands and a riven, haggard face,
remembering the sodden brutality of the men he had seen

[220]

TUBAL CAIN

in the smoke of charring, isolated stacks; and then a
sharp energy seized him.

'' How long back? " Hulings demanded.

" An hour or more, perhaps a couple."

Alexander raged at the mischance that had sent Gisda
on such an errand. Nothing, he felt, with Wooddrop's
manager secured, would halt the charcoal burners' re-
venge of Wishon's death. The rain now beat down in
a heavy diagonal pour and twilight was gathering.

"We must go at once for Mrs. Hulings," he said. Then
he saw Gisela approaching, accompanied by a small knot
of men. She walked directly up to him, her crinoline
soggy with rain, her hair plastered on her brow; but her
deathly pallor drove all else from his observation. She
shuddered slowly, her skirt dripping ceaselessly about her
on the sod.

" I was too late! " she said in a dull voice. "They
had done it! " She covered her eyes, moved back fron^
the men beside her, from him. " Swinging a little . . .
all alone! So sudden — there, before me!" A violent
shivering seized her.

" Come," Alexander Hulings said hoarsely; " you must
get out of the wet. Warm things. . Immediately! "

He called imperatively for Gisela's maid, and together
they assisted her up to her room. There Gisela had a
long, violent chill; and he sent a wagon for the doctor at
Hannony.

The doctor arrived, disappeared above; but, half an
hour later, he would say little. Alexander Hulings com-
manded him to remain in the house. The lines deepened
momentarily on the former's countenance; he saw himself

[221]

GOLD AND IRON

unexpectedly in a shadowy pier glass, and stood for a
long while subconsciously surveying the lean, grizzled
countenance that followed his gaze out of the immaterial
depths. " Alexander Hulings/' he said aloud, in a tor-
mented mockery; " the master of — of life! "

He was busy with the local marshal when the doctor
summoned him from the office.

" Your wife," the other curtly informed him, " has de-
veloped pneumonia."

Hulings steadied himself with a hand against a wall.

'^ Pneumonia! " he repeated, to no one in particular.
" Send again for John Wooddrop."

He was seated, a narrow, rigid figure, waiting for the
older man, in the midst of gorgeous upholstery. Two
facts hammered with equal persistence on his numbed
brain: one that all his projects, his dream of power, of
iron, now approached ruin, and the other that Gisela had
pneumonia. It was a dreadful thing that she had come
on in the Mills tract! The Columbus System must
triumphantly absorb all that he had, that he was to be.
Gisela had been chilled to the bone; pneumonia! It be-
came difficult and then impossible to distinguish one frcxn
the other — Gisela and the iron were inexplicably welded
in the poised catastrophe of his ambition.

Alexander Hulings rose, his thin lips pinched, his eyes
mere sparks, his body tense, as if he were confronting
the embodied force that had checked him. He stood
upright, so still that he might have been cast in the metal
that had formed his vision of power, holding an unquail-
ing mien. His inextinguishable pride cloaked him in a
final contempt for all that life, that fate, might do. Then

[222]

TUBAL CAIN

his rigidity was assaulted by John Wooddrop's heavy and
hurried entrance into the room.

Hulings briefly repeated the doctor's pronouncement.
Wooddrop's face was darkly pouched, his unremoved
hat a mere wet flhn, and he left muddy exact footprints
wherever he stepped on the velvet carpet.

" By heaven 1 " he quavered, his arms upraised. " If

between us we have killed her " His voice abruptly

expired.

As Alexander Hulings watched him the old man's
countenance grew livid, his jaw dropped; he was at the
point of falling. He gasped, his hands beating the air;
then the unnatural color receded, words became distin-
guishable: "Gisda! . . . I'd never forgive I Hellish!"
It was as if Death had touched John Wooddrop on the
shoulder, dragging a scarifying hand across his face, and
then briefly, capriciously withdrawn.

" Hulings 1 Hulings," he articulated, sinking weakly
on a chair, ''we must save her. And, anyhow, God
knows we were blind 1 " He peered out of suffused
rheumy eyes at Alexander, appalling in his sudden dis-
integration under shock and the weight of his years.
" I'm done! " he said tremulously. " And there's a good
bit to see to — patent lawyer tomorrow, and English ship-
ments. Swore I'd keep you from it," he held out a hand;
" but there's Gisela, brought down between us now, and
— and iron's colder than a daughter, a wife. We'd best
cover up the past quick as we can! "

At the instant of grasping John Wooddrop's hand Alex-
ander Hulings' inchoate emotion shifted to a vast real-
ization, blotting out all else from his mind. In the con-

[223]

GOLD AND IRON

trol of the 'immense Wooddrqp resources he was beyand,
above, all competition, all danger. What he had fought
for, persistently dreamed, had at last come about — he
was the greatest Ironmaster of the state!

[224]

The Dark Fleece

THE house in old Cottarsport in which Olive
Stanes lived was set midway on the steepness
of Orange Street. It was a low dwelling of
weathered boards holding dose to the rocky soil, resem-
bling, like practically all the Cottarsport buildings, the
salt weed clinging to the seaward rocks of the harbor;
and Orange Street, narrow, without walks and dipping
into cuplike depressions, was a type of almost all the
streets. The Stanes house was built with its gable to
the public way; the length faced a granite shoulder thrust
up through the spare earth, a tall, weedy disorder of
golden glow, and the sedgy incline to the habitation
above.

When Hester and Jem and then Rhoda were little they
had had great joy of the boulder in the side yard: at
first impossible and then difficult of accomplishment,
they had rapidly grown into a complete mastery of its
potentialities as a fort, a mansion impressive as that of
the Canderajrs* on Regent Street, and a ship under the
dangerous shore of the Feejees. Olive, the solitary child
of Ira Stanes' first marriage, had had no such reckless
pleasure from the rock

She had been, she realized, standing in the narrow

[227]

GOLD AND IRON

portico fhat ccnunanded by two steps the uneven
from Ae street, a very careful^ yes, considerate, diild when
measured by the gay irresponsibility of her half brother
and sisters. Money had been no more plentiful in the
Stanes famfly, nor in all Cottarspoit, flien than now; her
dresses had been few, she had been told not to soil or
tear them, and she had rigorously attended the instruc-
tion.

The second Mrs. Stanes, otherwise an admirable wife
and mother, had, to Olive's young disapproval, rather en-
couraged a boisterous conduct in her children which
overlooked a complete cleanliness or tidy array. And
vAxea she, like her predecessor, had died, and left Olive,
at twenty-three to assume full maternal responsibilities,
fliat serious vicarious parent had entered into an in-
evitable and largely unavailing struggle against the minor
damage caused mostly by the activities about the boulder.

Now Hester and Rhoda had left behind such purdy
imaginative games, and Jem was away fishing on the
Georges Bank; her duty and worries had shifted, but
not lessened; while the rock ronained precisely as it had
been through the children's growth, as it had appeared in
her own earliest memories, as it was before ever the
Stanes dwelling, now a hundred and fifty years in place,
or old Cottarsport itself, had been dreamed of. Her
thoughts were mixed: at once they created a vague parallel
between the granite in the side yard and herself, Olive
Stanes — they both seemed to have been so long in one
spot, so unchanged; and they dwelt on the fact that
soon — as soon as Jason Burrage got home — she must
be utterly different.

[228]

THE DARK FLEECE

Jason had written her that, if they cared .to, they
could build a house as large as the Canderays'. Under
the circumstances she had been obliged to look on that
aSy perhaps, an excusable exaggeration, but she instinc-
tively condemned the dereliction of the truth; yet, more
than any other figure could possibly have done, it im-
pressed upon her, from the boldness of the imagery, that
Jason had succeeded in finding the gold for which he
had gone in search nihe years before. He was coming
back, soon, rich.

The other important fact reiterated in his last letter,
that in all his absent years of struggle he had never fal-
tered in his purpose of coming to her with any fortune
he might chance to get, she regarded with scant thought.
It had not occurred to Olive that Jason Burrage would
do anything else; her only concern had been that he might
be killed; otherwise he had said that he loved her, and
that they were to marry when he returned.

She hadn't, really, been in favor of his going. The
Burrages, measured by Cottarsport standards, were com-
fortably situated, Mr. Burrage's packing warehouse and
employment in dried fish were locally called successful;
but Jason had never been satisfied with familiar values;
he had always exclaimed against the narrowness of his
local circumstance, and restlessly reached toward greater
possessions and a wider horizon. This dissatisfaction
Olive had thought wicked, in that it had seemed to
criticize the omnipotent and far-seeing wisdom of the
Eternal; it had caused her much unhappiness and prayer,
she had talked very earnestly to Jason about his stub-
bom spirit, but it had persisted in him, and at last

[229]

GOLD AND IRON

carried him west in Ibe first madnfss of tbe di
of gold in a California river.

Olive, at times, had thought that Jascn's revolt had
been brought about by the visible example of the worldly
pomp of the Canderays — of their great white house
with flie balustraded captain's walk <»i the gambreled
roof, their chaise, and equable but slightly disconcerting
courtesy. But she had been obliged to admit that, after
all was said, Jason's bearing was the result of his own
fretful heart

He had always been different from the other Cottars-
port youths and men: while they were commonly long and
bony, and awkwardly hung together, thickly tanned by
the winds and sun and spray of the sea, Jason was
small, compact, with dead black hair and pale skin.
Mr. Burrage was the usual Cottarsport old man, he
resembled a worn and discolored piece of drift-wood;
but, while his wife was not conspicuously out of the
ordinary, still there was a snap in her unfading eyes, a
ruddy roundness of cheek, that showed a lingering trace of
a French Acadian intermarriage a century and more ago.

Olive always regarded with something like surprise her
unquestioned love for Jason. It had grown quietly, un-
known to her, through a number of preliminary years
in which she had felt that she must exert some influence
for his good. He frightened her a little by his hot ut-
terances and by the manner in which his soul shivered
on the verge of a righteous danmation. The effort to
preserve him from such destruction became intenser and
more involved; until suddenly, to her after consternation,
she had surrendered her lips in a single, binding kiss.

[230]

THE DARK FLEECE

But with tbat consummation a great deal of her trou-
bling had ceased; spiritual vision, she had been certain,
must follow their sacred union and subsequent life.
Even the gold agitation and Jason's departure for Boston
and the western wild had not given her especial concern.
God was the supreme Master of human fate, and if He
willed for Jason to go forth who was she, Olive Stanes,
to make a to-do? She had quietly addressed herself to
the task of Hester, Jem and Rhoda, to the ordering of
her father's household — he was mostly away on the
sea and a solitary man at home — and the formal re-
currence of the occasions of the church.

In such ways, she thought, bathed in the keen, pale
red glow of a late afternoon in October, her youth had
slipped imperceptibly away.

II

A strong salt wind dipped into the hollow, and plastered
her skirt, without hoops, against her erect^ thin person.
With the instinct, bred by the sea, of the presence in all
calculations of the weather, she mechanically dwelt on its
force and direction, wrinkling her forehead and pinching
her Ups — she could hear the rising wind straining
through the elms on the hills behind Cottarsport — ^and
then she turned abruptly and entered the house.

There was a small dark hallway within, a narrow
flight of stairs leading sharply up; the door on the right,
to the formal chamber, was closed; but at the left an
interior of somber, scrubbed wood was visible. On the
side against the hall a cavernous fire-place, with a brick

[231]

GOLD AND IRON

hearth, blackened with shadows and the soot of ancient
fires, had been left open, but held an air-tight, sheet-iron
stove. The windows, high on the walls, were small and
long, rather than deep; and a table, perpetually spread,
stood on a thick hooked rug of brilliant, primitive de-
sign.

Rhoda, in a creaking birch rocker, was singing an in-
articulated song with closed eyes. Her voice gave both
the impression of being subdued and filling the room
with a vibrant power. She had a mature face for six-
teen years, vividly colored and sensitive, a wide mouth
and heavy twists of russet hair with metallic lights. The
song stopped as Olive entered. Rhoda said:

'* I wish Hester would hurry home; I'm dreadful
hungry."

" Sometimes they keep her at the packing house, espe-
cially if there's a boat in late and extra work."

" It's not very smart of her without being paid more.
They'll just put anything on you they can in this stingy
place. I can tell you I wouldn't do two men's work for
a woman's pay. I'm awful glad Jason's coming back
soon, Olive, with all that money, and I can go to Boston
and study singing."

" I've, said over and over, Rhoda," Olive replied pa-
tiently, "that you mustn't think and talk all the time
about Jason's worldly success. It doesn't sound nice,
but like we were all trying to get everything we could
out of him before ever he's here."

'' Didn't he say in the last letter that I was to go to
Boston! " Rhoda exclaimed impatiently. " Didn't he just
up and tell me that I Why, with all the gold Jason's got

[232]

THE DARK FLEECE

it won't mean anything for him to send me away. It
isn't as if I wouldn't pay you all back for the trouble
I've been. I know I can sing, and I'll work harder
than ever Hester dreamed of "

As if materialized by the pronouncement of her name
the latter entered the room. " Gracious, Hester," Rhoda
declared distastefully, making a nose, ''you smell of
dead haddock right this minute." The former, unlike
Rhoda's softly rounded proportions, was more bony than
Olive, infinitely more colorless, although ten years the
younger. She had a black worsted scarf over her drab
head in place of a hat, its ends wrapped about her meager
shoulders and bombazine waist. Without preliminary she
dropped into her place at the supper table, the shawl
trailing on the broad, uneven boards of the Boor.

" The wind's smartening up on the bay," she told them.
'' Captain Eagleston looks for half a blow. It has got
cold, too. I wish the tea'd be ready when I get in
from the packing house. It seems that much could be
done with Olive only sitting around and Rhoda singing
to herself in the mirror on her dresser."

" It'll draw in a minute more," Olive said in the door
from the kitchen, beyond the fireplace. Rhoda smiled
cheerfully.

" I suppose," Hester went on, in a voice without em-
phasis, but which yet contrived to be thinly bitter, " you
were all talking about what would happen when Jason
came home with that fortune of his. Far as I can see
he's promised and provided for everybody, Jem and
Rhoda and his parents and Olive, every Tom and Noddy^
but me."

[233]

GOLD AND IRON

"I dent like to keep on about it,** Olive protested,
pained. " Yet you cant see, Hester, ban indqioident
you aie. A person wouldn't like to oRet you anydung
until you bad signified. You were never veiy nice wiQi
Jason anyway."

" Well, I'm not gmng to be nicer after he's back with
gold in his pocket I guess bell find I^ not hanging
en his shoulder for a cashmere dress or a trip to
Boston."

" Pa ought to get into Salem soon," Rhoda observed.
" He said after this be wasn't going to ship again,
even along the coast, but tally fish f<u- Mr. Barrage.
Pa's getting old."

" And Jemll be bame from the Georges, too," Olive
added, seating herself with the tea. " I do hope be won't
sign f(v China or any of those long voyages like he
threatened."

" He wont get so far away from Jason," Hester
stated.

" I saw Honora Canderay today," Rhoda informed
them. " She wasn't in the chaise, but walking past ttie
courthouse. She had on a small bcHmet with flowers in-
side the brim and dumpy hoops, gallooned and scal-
Icqied."

" Did she stop? " Olive inquired.

" Yes, and said I was as bright as a fall maple leaf.
I wish I could look. like Honora Canderay "

"Wait till Jason's back," Hester interrupted.

"It isn't her dothes," Rhoda went on; "they're ele-
gant material, of course, but not the colors I'd choose; nor
it isn't her looks, either, no one would say she's down-
[234]

THE DARK FLEECE

right pretty; it's just — just her. Is she as old as you,
Olive? "

"Let's see, I'm thirty-six, and Honora Canderay was
. • . she's near as dd, a year younger maybe."

" She is wonderful to get close to," said Rhoda, " no
cologne and yet a lovely kind of smell "

" Not like dead haddock," this was Hester again.

" Do you know," proceeded the younger, " she seemed
to me kind of lonely. I wanted to give her a hug, but I
wouldn't have for all the gold in California. I can't make
out if she is freezing outside and nice in, or just polite
and thinks nobody's good enough for her. She had an
India shawl as big as a sail, with palm leaf ends, and — "

" Rhoda, I wish you wouldn't put so much on clothes
and such corruption," Olive spoke firmly, with a light
of zeal in her gaze. ** Can't you think on the eterni-
ties?"

"Like Jason Burrage and Honora Canderay," ex-
plained Hester; "Honora Canderay and Jason Burrage.
They're eternities if there ever were any. If it isn't one
it's bound to be the other."

Ill

Olive's room had a sloping outer wall and casually
placed insufficient windows; her bed, with a blue-white
quilt, was supported by heavy maple posts; there were
a chest of drawers, with a minute mirror stand, a utilitar-
ian wash-pitcher and basin, a hanging for the protection
of her clothes, and uncompromising chairs. A small cir-
cular table with a tatted cover held her Bible and a de-

[235]

GOLD AND IRON

votional book, "The Family Companion," 6y a Pastor.
It was cold when she went up to bed; with a desire to
linger in her preparations, she put some resinous sticks
of wood into a sheet-iron stove, and almost immediately
there was a busily exploding combustion. A glass lamp
on the chest of ^wers shed a pale illumination that
failed to reach the confines of the room; and, for a while,
she moved in and out of its wan influence.

She was thinking fixedly about Jason Burrage, and
the great impending change in her condition, not in its
worldly implications — she bought mostly qf material
values in the spirit of her admonitions to Rhoda — but
in its personal and inner force. At times a pale question
of her aptitude for marriage disturbed her serenity; at
times she saw it as a sacrifice of her being to a condition
commanded of God, a species of mart3rrdom even. The
nine years of Jason's absence had fixed certain maidenly
habits of privacy, the mold of her life had taken a
definite cast. Her existence had its routine, the recur-
rence of Sunday, its contemplations, duties and heavenly
aim. And, lately, JasoiTs letters had disturbed her.

They seemed filled with an almost wicked pride and a
disconcerting energy; he spoke of things instinctively dis-
tressing to her; there were hints of rude. Godless force
and gaiety — allusions to the Jenny Lind Theatre, the
El Dorado, which she apprehended as a name of evil
import, and to the excursions they would make to Boston
or as far as New York.

Jason, too, she realized, must have developed; and
California, she feared, might have emphasized exactly
such traits as she would wish suppressed. The power

[236]

THE DARK FLEECE

of self-destruction in the human heart she believed im-
measurable. All, all, must throw themselves in abject
humility upward upon the Rock of Salvation. And she
could find nothing humble in Jason's periods, burdened
as they were with a patent satisfaction in the success of
his venture.

Yet parallel with this was a gladness that he had
triumphed, and that he was coming back to Cottarsport
a figure of importance. She could measure that by the
attitude of their town, by the number and standing qf
the people who cordially stopped her on the street for
the purposes of congratulation and curiosity. Everyone,
of course, had known of their engagement, there had been
a marked interest when Jason and a fellow townsman,
Thomas Gast, had departed; but that would be in-
significant compared to the permanent bulk Jason must
now assume. Why, he would be with the Canderays,
Cottarsport's most considerable people.

As always, at the merest thought of the Canderays,
personal facts were suspended for a mental glance at
that apart family. There was no sense of inferiority
in Olive's mind, but an instinctive feeling of difference.
This wasn't the result of their big house, nor because
the Captain's wife had been a member of Boston society,
but from the contrariness in the family itsdf, now cen-
tered in Honora, the only one alive.

Perhaps Honora's diversity lay in the fact that, while
she seldom actually left Cottarsport, it was easy to see
that she had a part in a life far beyond anything Olive,
whose consciousness was strictly limited to one narrow
place, knew. She always suggested a wider and more

[237]

GOLD AND IRON

elegantly finished existence than that of local sociables
and church activities. Captain Ithid Canderay, a mem-
ber of a Cottarsport family long since moved away, had,
from obscure surprising promptings, returned at his suc-
cessful retirement from the sea, and built his impressive
dwelling in the grey community. He had always, how*-
ever different the tradition of his wife's attitude, entered
with a candid spirit into the interests and life of the
town, where he had inspired solid confidence in a domi-
neering but unimpeachable integrity. Such small civic
honors as the locality had to bestow were his, and were
discharged to the last and most exacting degree. But
there had been perpetually about him the aloof air of the
quarter-deck, his tones had never lost the accent of com-
mand, and, while Cottarsport bitterly guarded its per-
sonal equality and independence, it took a certain pride
in recognition of the Captain's authority.

Something of this had unquestionably descended upon
Honora, her position was made and zealously guarded by
the town. Yet that alone failed to hold the reason for
Olive's feeling; it was at once more particular and more
all-embracing, and largely feminine. She was almost
contemptuous of the other's delicacy of person, of the
celebrated facts that Honora Canderay never turned her
hand to the cooking of a dish nor the sweeping of a stair;
and at the same time these very things lifted her apart
from Olive's commonplace round.

Her mind turned again to herself and Jason's home-
coming. He had been wonderfully generous in his writ-
ten promises to Rhoda and Jem; and he would be equally
thoughtful of Hester, she was certain of that. People

[238]

^

THE DARK FLEECE

had a way of overlooking Hester, a faithful and, for all
her talk, a Christian character. Rhoda would study to be
a singer; striving, Olive hoped, to put what talent she had
to a sanctioned use; and Jem, a remarkably vigorous and
able boy of eighteen, would command his own fishing
schooner.

The sheet-iron stove glowed cherry red with the energy
of its heat, and a blast of wind rushed against the win-
dows. The latter, she recognized, had steadily grown in
force; and Olive thought of her father in the barque
Emerald of Salem, somewhere between Richmond and the
home port . . . The lamplight swelled and diminished.

She got a new pleasure from the conjunction of her sur-
render to matrimony and the good it would bring the
otha^; that — self-sacrifice — was excellence; such sub-
jection of the pride of the flesh was the essence of her
service. Then some mundane affairs invaded her mind —
a wedding dress, the preparation of food for a small com-
pany after the cerraaony, whether she would like having
a servant — Jason would insist on that — and decided in
the negative. She wouldn't be put upon in her own
kitchen.

Her arrangements for the night were complete, and she
set the stove door slightly open, shivering in her coarse
night dress before the icy cold drifts of wind in the room,
extinguished the lamp, and, after long, conscientiously de-
liberate prayers, got into bed. The wind boomed about
the house, rattling all the sashes. Its force now seemed to
be buffeting her heart until she got a measure of release
from the thought of the granite boulder in the side yard,
changeless and immovable.

[239]

GOLD AND IRON

IV

The morning was gusty, with a coldly blue and
cloudless sky. Olive, reaching the top of Orange
Street, was whipped with dust, her hoops flattened
grotesquely against her body. The town fell away
on either hand, lying in a half moon on its harbor.
The latter, as blue and bright as the sky, was formed by
the rocky arm of Cottar's Neck, thrust out into the sea and
bent from right to left. Most of the fishing fleet showed
their bare spars at the wharves, but one, a minute fleck of
white canvas, was beating her way through the Narrows.
She wondered, descending, if it were Jem coming home.

Olive was going to the Burrages'; it was possible that
they had had a later letter than hers from Jason. It
might be he would arrive that very day. She was con-
scious of her heart throbbing slightly at that possibility,
but from a complexity of emotions which still left her un-
easy if faintly exhilarated. She crossed the courthouse
square, where she saw that the green grass had become
brown, apparently over night, and turned into Marlboro
Street. Here the houses were more recent than the Stanes\
they were four square, with a full second story — a series
of detached white blocks with flat porticoes — each set
behind a wood fence in a lawn with flower borders or
twisted and tree-like lilacs.

She entered the Burrage dwelling without the formality
of knocking; and, familiar with the household, passed di-
rectly through a narrow, darkened hall, on which all the
doors were dosed, to the dining room and kitchen beyond.

[240]

THE DARK FLEECE

As she had known he would be, Hazzard Barrage was
seated with his feet, in lamb's wool slippers^ thrust under
the stove. For the rest, but lacking his coat, he was
formally and completely dressed; his corded throat was
folded in a formal black stock, a watch chain and seal
hung across his waistcoat. Mrs. Burrage was occupied
in lining a cupboard with fresh shelf paper with a cut
lace border. She was a small woman, with quick exact
movements and an impatient utterance; but her husband
was slow — a man who deliberately studied the world with
a deep-set gaze.

" I thought you might have heard," Olive stated di-
rectly, on the edge of a painted, split-hickory chair.
They hadn't, Mrs. Burrage informed her:

" I expect hell just come walking in. That's the way
he always did things, and I guess California, or any-
where else, won't change him to notice it And when he
does," she continued, " he's going to be put out with Haz-
zard. I told you Jason sent us three thousand dollars
to get the front of the house fixed up. He said he didn't
want to find his father sitting in the kitchen when he got
back. Jason said we were to bum three or four stoves all
at <uice. But he won't, and that's all there is to it. Why,
he just put the money in the bank and there it lies. I
read him the parable about the talents, but it didn't stir
him an inch." ,

''Jason always was quick acting," Hazzard Burrage
declared, "he never stopped to consider; and it's as like
as not he'll need that money. It wouldn't surprise me if
when he sat down and counted what he had Jason'd find it
was less than he thought."

[341]

GOLD AND IRON

'* He wrote me,'' Olive stated, '* that we could build a
house as big as the Canderays'."

" Jason always was one to talk," Mrs. Burrage replied
in defense of her son.

Olive moved over to the dder woman and held the
dishes to be replaced in the cupboard. They commented
on the force of the wind throughout the night. ** The tail
end of a blow at sea," Burrage told them; *^ I wouldn't
wonder but it reached right down to the West Indies."

" I hope he brings me a grey satinet pelerine like I
wrote," said Mrs. Burrage. She was obviously flushed
at the thought of the possession of such a garment — a
fact which Olive felt, at the other's age, to be inappro-
priate to the not distant solemnity of the Christian ordeal
of death. She repeated automatically: '^ • . turn from
these vanities unto the living God."

She rose, *' I'll let you know if I hear anything, and
anyhow stop in tomorrow."

Outside sere leaves were whirling in grey funnels of
dust, the intense blue bay sparkled under the cobalt sky;
and, leaving Marlboro Street with a hand on her bonnet,
she ran directly into Honora Canderay.

"Oh!" Olive exclaimed, breathless and slightly con-
cerned. " Indeed if I saw you, Honora; the wind was
that strong pulling at a person."

"What does it matter," Honora replied. She was
wrapped from throat to hem in a cinnamon colored vel-
vet cloak that, fluttering, showed a lining of soft, quilted
yellow. In the flood of morning her skin was flawless;
her delicate lips and hazel eyes held the faint mockery
that was the visible sign of her disturbing quality. She

[242]

THE DARK FLEECE

laid a hand, in a short, furred kid glove, on Olive's arm.

'' I am so pleased about Jason's success," she continued,
in a dear insistent voice. "You must be mad with
anxiety to have him back. It's the most romantic thing
in the world. Aren't you thrilled to the soul! "

" I'm glad to — to know he's been preserved," Olive
stammered, confused by Honora's frank speech.

" You sound exactly as if he were a jar of quinces," the
other answered impatiently; " and not a true lover coming
back from California with bags of gold."

Olive's confusion deepened to painful embarrassment at
the indelicate term lover. She wondered, hotly red, how
Honora could go on so, and made a motion to continue
on her way. But the other's fingers closed and held her.
" I wonder, Olive," she said more thoughtfully, " if I
know you well enough, if you will allow me, to give you
some advice. It is this — don't be too rigid with Jason
when he gets back. For nearly ten years he's been out in
a life very different from Cottarsport, and he must have
changed in that time. Here we stay almost the same —
ten or twenty or fifty years is nothing really. The fishing
boats come in, they may have different names, but they
are the same. We stop and talk, Honora Canderay and
Olive Stanes, and years before and years later women
will stand here and do the same with beliefs no wider
fhan your finger. But it isn't like that outside; and
Jason will have that advantage of us — things really very
small, but which have always seemed tremendous here,
will mean no more to him than they are worth. He will
be cardess, perhaps, of your most cherished ideas; and,
if you are to meet him fairly, you must try to see through

[243]

GOLD AND IRON

his eyjs as well as your own. Truly I want you to be
happy, Olive; I want everyone in Cottarsport to be as
happy ... as he can."

Olive's embarrassment increased: it was impossible to
know what Honora Canderay meant by her last words,
in that echoing voice. Nevertheless, her independence of
spirit, the long nourished toiets of the abhorrence of
sin, asserted themselves in the face of even Honora's di-
rections. " I trust," she replied stiffly, " that Jason has

been given grace to walk in the path of God " She

stopped with lips parted, her breath laboring with shock,
at the interruption pronounced in ringing accents. Hon-
ora Canderay said:

" Grace be damned! "

Olive backed away with her hands pressed to her cheeks.
In the midst of her shuddering surprise she realized how
much the other resembled her father, the captain.

"I suppose," Honora further ventured, "that you are
looking for a bolt of lightning, but it is late in the season
for that. There are no thunder storms to speak of after
September," she turned abruptly, and Olive watched her
depart, gracefully swaying atgainst the wind.

All Olive's unfonned opinions and attitude concern-
ing Honora Canderay crystallized into one sharp, in-
telligible feeling — dislike. The breadth of being
which the other had seemed to possess was now re-
vealed as nothing more than a lack of reverence. She was
inexpressibly upset by Honora's profanity, the blasphe-

[244]

THE DARK FLEECE

mous mind it exhibited, her attempted glossing of sin. It
was nothing less. In the assault on Olive's most funda-
mental verities — the contempt which she divined had
been offered to the edifice of her conscience and creed —
she responded blindly, instinctively, with an overwhelming
condemnation. At the same time she was frightened, and
hurried away from the proximity of such unsanctified
talk. She did not go to Citron Street, and the shops,
as she had intended; but kept directly on until she found
herself at the harbor and wharves. The latter serrated
the water's edge, projecting from the relatively tall, bald
warehouses, reeking with the odor of dead fish, cut open
and laid in salt, grey-white areas to the sun and wind.

A small group of men, with flat bronzed countenances
and rough furze coats, uneasily stirred their hats, in the
local manner of saluting women, and turned to gaze
fixedly at her as she passed. Even in her perturbation of
mind she was conscious of their unusual scrutiny. She
couldn't, now, for the life of her, recall what needed to be
bought; and, mounting the narrow uneven way from the
water, she proceeded home.

Some towels, laid on the boulder to dry, had not been
sufficiently weighted and hung blown and crumpled on a
lilac bush. These she collected, rearranged, complaining
of the blindness of whoever might be about the house, and
then proceeded within. There, to her amazement, she
found Hester, in the middle of the morning, and Rhoda
bent over the dinner table, sobbing into her arm. Hester
met her with a drawn face darkly smudged beneath the
eyes.

" The Emerald was lost off the Cape," she said; " sunk

[245]

GOLD AND IRON

with all on board. A man came over from Salem to tell
us. He had to go right back. Pa, he's lost."

Olive sank into a chair with limp hands. Rhoda con-
tinued uninterrupted her sobbing, while Hester went on
with her recital in a thin, blank voice. " The ship /. Q.
Adams stood by the Emerald but there was such a sea
running she couldn't do anything else. They just had to
see the Emerald, with the men in the rigging, go under.
That's what he said who was here. They just had to see
Pa drown before their eyes. . . . The wind was some-
thing terrible."

A deep, dry sorrow constricted Olive's heart. Suddenly
the details of packing her father's blue sea chest returned
to. her mind — the wool socks she had knitted and care-
fully folded in the bottom, the needles and emery and
thread stowed in their scarlet bag, the tin of goose grease
for his throat, the Bible that had been shipped so often.
She thought of them all scattered and rent in the wild
sea, of her father

She forced herself to rise, with a set face, and put her
hand on Rhoda's shoulder. '* It's right to mourn, like
Rachel, but don't forget the majesty of God." Rhoda
shook off her palm and continued in an ecstasy of emo-
tional relief. Olive hardened. " Get up," she com-
manded, '* we must fix things here, for the neighbors and
Pastor will be in. I wish Jem were back."

At this Rhoda became even more unrestrained, and
Olive remembered that Jem too was at sea, and that prob-
ably he had been caught in the same gale. *' He'll be all
right," she added quickly, '' the fishing boats live through
everything."

[246]

THE DARK FLEECE

Yet she was infinitely relieved when, two days later,
Jem arrived safely home. He came into the house with
a pounding of heavy boots, a powerfully built youth with
a rugged jaw and an intent quiet gaze. '* I heard at ths
wharf," he told Olive. They were in the kitchen, and he
pulled off his boots and set them away from the stove:

" I'm thankful you're so steady and able," she said.

" I am glad Jason's coming home — rich," he replied
tersely. Later, after supper, while they still sat at the
table, he went on, "There is a fine yawl for sale at
Ipswich, sails ain't been made a year, fifty-five tons; I
could do right good with that. The fishing's never been
better. Do you think Jason would be content to buy her,
Olive? I could pay him back after a run or two."

"He told you he'd do something like that," she an-
swered. " I guess now it wouldn't mean much to him."

"And 111 be away," Rhoda eagerly added; "you
wouldn't have to give me anything, Jem. Jason prom-
ised me, too."

An unreasonable and disturbing sense of insecurity en-
veloped Olive. But, of course, it would be all right —
Jason was coming back rich, to marry her. Jem would
have the yawl and Rhoda get away to study singing. And
yet all that she vaguely dreaded about Jason himself per-
sisted darkly at the back of her consciousness, augmented
by Honora Canderay's warning. She was a little afraid
of Jason, too; in a way, after so long, he seemed like a
stranger, a stranger whom she was going to wed.

"He'll be all dressed up," Rhoda stated. "I hope,
Olive, you will kiss him as soon as he steps through the
door. I know I would."

[247]

GOLD AND IRON

^ Don't be so shameless, Rhoda," the elder admonished
her. " You are very indelicate. I'd never think of kiss-
ing Jason like that."

" I will go over and see the man who owns her," Jem
said enigmatically. " She's a cockpit boat but I beard
the wave wasn't made that could fill her. And we have
my share of the last run till Jason's here."

He paid this faithfully into Olive's hand the next day
and then disappeared. She thought he came through
the door again, someone stood behind her. Olive turned
slowly and saw an impressive figure in stiff black broad-
cloth and an incredibly high glassy silk hat.

VI

She knew instinctively that it must be Jason Bur-
rage, and yet the feeling of strangeness persisted. All
sense of the time which had elapsed since Jason left was
lost in the illusion that the figure familiar to her through
years of knowledge and association had instantly, by a
species of magic, been transformed into the slightly smil-
ing, elaborate man in the doorway. She stepped back-
ward, hesitatingly pronouncing his name.

" Olive," he exclaimed, with a deep, satisfied breath,
" it hasn't changed a particle 1 " To her extreme relief
he did not make a move to embrace her; but gazed intently
about the room. One of the things that made him seem
different, she realized, was the rim of whiskers framing
his lower face. She became conscious of details of his ap-
pearance — baggy dove-colored trousers over glazed boots,
a quince yellow waistcoat in diamond pattern, a cluster of

[248]

THE DARK FLEECE

$

/

seals. Then her attention was held by his oountenance
and she saw that his clothes were only an insignifi-
cant part of his real difference from the man she had
known.

Jason Barrage had always had a set will, the reputation
of an impatient, even ugly disposition. This had been
marked by a sultry lip and flickering eye; but now,
though his expression was noticeably quieter, it gave her
the impression of a glittering and dangerous reserve; his
masklike calm was totally other than the mobile face she
had known. Then, too, he had grown much older — she
swiftly computed his age: it could not be more than forty-
two, yet his hair was thickly stained with grey, lines
starred the comers of his eyes and drew faintly at his
mouth.

" Are you glad to see me, Olive? " he asked.

"Why, Jason, what an unnecessary question. Of
course I am, more thankful than I can say for your
safety."

" I walked across the hills from the Dumner stage," he
proceeded. " It was something to see Cottarsport on its
bay and the Neck and the fishing boats at Planger's
wharf. I'd like to have an ounce of gold for every
time I thought about it and pictured it and you. Out on
the placers of the Calaveras, or the Feather, I got to be-
lieving there wasn't any such town, but here it is " he

advanced toward her. She realized that she was about to
be kissed and a painful color dyed her chedcs.

" You'll stop for supper," she said practically.

" I haven't been home yet, I came right here; I'll see
them and come back. I'll bet I find them in the kitchen,

[249]

GOLD AND IRON

with fhe float stoves black, in spite of what I wrote and
sent I brought you a present, just for fun, and 111 leave
it now since it's heavy." He bent over a satchel at his feet
and got a buckskin bag, bigger than his two fists, which
he dropped with a dull thud on the table.

" What is it, Jason? " she asked. But of herself she
knew the answer. He untied a string, and, dipping in
his fingers, showed her a fine yellow metallic trickle.
" Gold dust, two tumblers full," he replied. " We used
to measure it that way — a pinch a dollar, teaspoonf ul to
the ounce, a wineglass holds a hundred, and a tumbler a
thousand dollars."

She was breathless before the small shapeless pouch
that held such a staggering amount. He laughed, '' Why,
Olive, it's nothing at all. I just brought it like that so
you could see how we carried it in California. We are all
rich now, Olive — the Burrages, and you're one, and the
Stanes. I have close to a hundred and fifty thousand
dollars."

This sum was little more to her than a fable, a thing
beyond the scope of her comprehension; but the two thou-
sand dollars before her gaze was a miracle made manifest.
There it was to study, feel; subconsciously she inserted her
hand in the bag, into the cold, smooth particles.

" A hundred and fifty thousand," he repeated; " but if
you think I didn't work for it, if you suppose I picked it
right out of a pan on the river bars, why — why you are
wrong." Words failed him to express the erroneousness of
such conclusions. " I slaved like a Mexican," he added;
** and in bad luck almost to the end." She sat and gazed
at him with an easier air and a growing interest, her hands

[250]

THE DARK FLEECE

clasped in her lap. '^What I didn't know when I left
Cottarsport was wonderful.

" Why, tate the mining," he stated with a gesture, ** I
mean the bowl mining at first, just the heavy work in it
killed off most of the prospectors — all day with a big iron
pan, half full of day and gravel, sloshing about in those
rivers. And maybe you'd work a month without a glim-
mer, waking wet and cold under the sierras, whirling the
pan round and round; and maybe when you had the
iron cleared out with a magnet, and dropped in the quick-
silver what gold was there wouldn't amalgam. I can tell
you, Olive, only the best, or the hardest, came through."

He produced a blunt, tapering cigar and lighted it ex-
pansively.

" A lonely and dangerous business: everyone carried his
dust right on his body, and there were plenty would risk
a shot at a miner coming back solitary with his donkey and
his pile. It got better when the new methods came, and
we used a rocker hollowed out of a log. Then four of us
went in partnership — one to dig the gravel, another to
carry it to the cradle, a third to keep it rocking, and the
last to pour in the water. Then we drawed off the gold
and sand through a plug hole.

" We did fine at that," he told her, " and in the fall
of Fifty cleaned up eighteen thousand apiece. Then we
had an argument: we were in the Yuba country, where it
was kind of bad, two of us, and I was one of them, said to
divide the dust, and get out best we could; but the others
wanted to send all the gold to San Francisco in charge of
one of them and a man who was going down with more
dust. We finally agreed to this and lost every ounce

[251]

GOLD AND IRON

we'd mined. The escort said they were shot by some of
the disbanded California army, but I'm not sure. It
seemed to me like our two had met somewhere, killed the
other, and got the gold to rights."

" O Jason I " Olive exclaimed.

"That was nothing," he said complacently; "but only
a joker to start with. I did a lot of things then to get a
new outfit — sold peanuts on the Plaza in 'Frisco, or
hollered the New York Tribune at a dollar and a half
a copy; I washed glasses in a saloon and drove mules.
After that I took a steamer for Stocton and the Calaveras.
You ought to have seen Stocton, Olive, board shanties and
blanket houses and tents with two thieves left hanging
on a gallows. We went from there, a party of us, for
the north bank of the Calaveras, tramping in dust so hot
that it scorched your face. Sluicing had just started and
long Toms — a long Tom is a short placer — so we didn't
know much about it. Looking back I can see the gold
was there; but after working right up to the end of the
season we had no more than a couple of thousand apiece.
There were too many of us to start with.

"Well, I drifted back to San Francisco," he paused,
and the expression which had most disturbed her deepened
on his countenance, a stillness like the marble of a grave^
stone guarding implacable secrets.

" San Francisco is different from Cottarsport, Olive,"
be said after a little. " Here you wouldn't believe there
was such a place; and there Cottarsport seemed too safe
to be true . . . Well, I went after it again, this time as
far north as Shasta. I prospected from the Shasta coun-
try south, and got a good lump together again. By then

[252]

THE DARK FLEECE

placer mining was better understood, we had sluice boxes
two or three hundred feet long, connected with the streams,
with strips nailed across the bottom where the gold and
sand settled as the water ran through. Yes, I did well;
and then fiuming conmienced.

'^ That/' he explained, ** is damming a river around its
bed and washing the opened gravel. It takes a lot of
money, a lot of work and men; and sometimes it pays
big, and often it doesn't. I guess there were fifty of us
at it. We slaved all the dry season at the dam and flume,
a big wood course for the stream; we had wing dams for
the placers and ditches, and the best prospects for eight
or ten weeks' washing. It was early in September when
we were ready to start, and on a warm afternoon I said
to an old pardner, ' What do you make out of those big,
black clouds settling on the peaks? ' He took one look
— tiie wind was a steady and muggy southwest'er — and
then he sat down and cried. The tears rolled ri^t over
his beard.

*' It was the rains, nearly two months early, and the
next day dams, flume, boards and hope boiled down past
us in a brown mash. That left me poorer than I'd ever
been before; I had more when I was home on the wharves."

" Wait," she interrupted him, rising, "if you're coming
back to supper I must put the draught on the stove."
From the kitchen she heard him singing in a low, con-
tented voice:

*' * The pilot bread was in my moafh,
The gold dust in my eye,
And though from you I*m far away,
Dear Anna, don*t you cry ! * **
[2S3]

GOLD AND IRON

Thea:

"'Oh, Ann Eliza!
Don*t you cry for mc.
Tm going to Calaveras
With my wash bowl on my knee.* "

She returned and resumed her position with her hands
folded.

^'And thaV Jason Burrage tdd her, ^'was how I
learned gold mining in California. I sank shafts, too,
and worked a windlass till the holes got so deep they had
to be timbered and the ore needed a crusher. But after
the fluming I knew what to wait for. I kept going in
a sort of commerce for a while — buying old outfits and
selling them again to the late comers — a pick or shovel
would bring ten dollars and long boots fifty dollars a pair.
I got twenty-four dollars for a box of Seidlitz powders.
Then in Fifty-four I went in with three scientific men,
one had been a big chemist at Paris, and things took a
turn. We had the dead wood on gold. Why, we did
nothing but re-travel the American Fork and Indian Bar,
the Casumnec and Moquelumne, and work the tailings the
earlier miners had piled up and left, just like I had south.
We did some pretty things with cyanide, yes, and hy-
draulics and powder.

"Things took a turn," he repeated; "investments in
stampers and so on, and here I am."

After he had gone — supper, she had informed him, was
at five exactly — Olive had the bewildered feeling of par-
tially waking from an extraordinary dream. Yet the buck-
skin bag on the table possessed a weighty actuality.

[254]

THE DARK FLEECE

VII

She sat for a long while gazing intently at the gold,
which, like a crystal ball, held for her varied reflections.
Then, recalling the exigencies of the kitchen, she hurried
abruptly away. Her thoughts wheeled about Jason
Burrage in a confusion of all the impressions she had
ever had of him. But try as she might she could not
picture the present man as a part of her life in Cottars-
port, she could not see herself married to him, although
that event waited just beyond today. She set her lips
in a straight line, a fixed purpose gave her courage in
place of the timidity inspired by Jason's opulent strange-
ness — she couldn't allow herself to be turned aside for
a moment from tiie way of righteousness. The gods of
mammon, however they might blackly assault her spirit,
should be confounded.

". . . hide me
Till the storm of life is past.*'

She sang in a high quavering voice. There was a stir be-
yond — surely Jason wasn't back so soon; but it was
Jem.

" What's on the table here? " he called.

" You let that be," she cried back in a panic at having
left the gift so exposed. *^ That's gold dust, Jason brought
it, two thousand dollars' worth."

A prolonged whistle followed her announcement. Jem
appeared with the buckskin bag in his hand. "Why,
here's two yawls right in my hand," he asserted,

[2SS]

GOLD AND IRON

^'Mind one thing, Jem," she went on, ''he's coming
back for supper, and I won't have you and Rhoda at
him about boats and singing the minute he's in the house."

Rhoda, with exclamations, and then Hester, inspected
the gold. **Vd slave five years for that," the latter
stated, " and then hardly get it; and here you have it for
nothing."

" You'll get the good of it too, Hester," Olive told
her.

" I'll just work for what I get," she replied fiercely.
" I won't take a penny from Jason, Olive Stanes; you
can't hold that over me, and the sooner you both know it
the better."

" You ought to pray to be saved from pride."

" I don't ask benefits from anyone," Hester stoutly ob-
served.

" Hester " Olive commenced, scandalized, but she

stopped at Jason's entrance. '' Hester she wanted a share
of the gold," Jem declared with a light in his slow gaze,
** and Olive was cursing at her."

" Lots more," said Jason Burrage, " buckets full."

In spite of the efforts of everyone to be completely at
ease the supper was unavoidably stiff. But when Jason
had lighted one of his blunt cigars, and begun a vivid
description of western life, the Stanes were transported
by the marvels following one upon another: a nugget had
been picked up over a foot long, it weighed a hundred
and ninety pounds, and realized forty-three thousand dol-
lars. " Why, fifty and seventy-five lumps were common,"
he asserted. '' At Ford's Bar a man took out seven hun-
dred dollars a day for near a month. Another found

[256]

THE DARK FLEECE

seventeen thousand dollars in a gutter two or three feet
deep and not a hundred yards long.

" But Trisco was the place, you could see it spread in
a day with warehouses on the water and tents climbing up
every hill. Happy Valley, on the beach, couldnH hold
another rag house. The Parker House rented for a hun-
dred and seventy thousand a year, and most of it paid for
gambling privileges — mont^ and faro, blazing lights and
brass bands everywhere and dancing in the El Dorado
saloon. At first the men danced with each other, but
later ''

He stopped, an awkward silence followed. Olive was
rigid with inarticulate protest, a sense of outrage —
gambling, saloons and dancing. All that she had feared
about Jason became more concrete, more imminent. She
saw California as a modem Babylon, a volcano of gdd
and vice; already she had heard of great fires that had
devastated it.

"We didn't mine on Sunday, Olive," Jason assured
her; " and all the boys went to the preaching and sang
the hymns, standing out on the grass."

Hester, finally, with a muttered period, rose and dis-
appeared; Jem went out to consult with a man, his nod
to Olive spoke of yawls; and Rhoda, at last, reluctantly
made her way above. Olive's uneasiness increased when
she found herself alone with the man she was to marry.

" I don't like Rhoda and Jem hearing about all that
wickedness," she told Jason Burrage; "they are yoimg
and easy affected. Rhoda gives me a lot of worry as it
is."

" Suppose we forget them," he suggested. " I havenH

[257]

GOLD AND IRON

had a word with you yet, that is, about oursdves. I donH
even know but you have gone and fell in love with some-
one else."

" Jason," she replied, " how can you ? I told you I'd
marry you, and I will."

"Are you glad to see me?" he demanded, coming
closer and capturing her hand.

" Why, what a question. Of course I'm pleased you're
back and safe."

" You haven't got a headache, have you ? " he inquired
jocularly.

" No," she replied seriously. His words, his manners,
his grasp, worried her more and more. Still, she re-
minded herself, she must be patient, accept life as it had
been ordained. There was a slight flutter at her heart, a
constriction of her throat; and she wondered if this were
love. She should, she felt, exhibit more warmth at Jason's
return, the preservation, through such turbulent years of
absence, of her image. But it was beyond her power to
force her hand to return his pressure: her fingers lay
still and cool in his grasp.

" You are just the same, Olive," he told her; " and I'm
glad you're what you are, and that Cottarsport is what it
is. That's why I came back, it was in my blood, the old
town and you. All the time I kept thinking of when I'd
come back rich as I made up my mind to be, and get
you what you ought to have — be of some importance in
Cottarsport like the Canderays. The old captain, too,
died while I was away. How's Honora? "

" Honora Canderay is an ungodly wcHnan," Olive as-
serted with emphasis.

[258]

THE DARK FLEECE

^' I don't know anything about that/' he said; ^' but I
always kind of liked to look at her. She reminded me of
a schooner with ever3^ing set coming up brisk into the
wind.'' Olive made a motion toward the stove, but he
restrained her; rising, he put in fresh wood. Then he
turned and again seemed lost in a long, contented inspec-
tion of the quiet interior. Olive saw that marks of weari-
ness shadowed his eyes.

" This is what I came back for," he reiterated; " peace-
ful as the forests, and yet warm and human. Blood
counts." He returned to his place by her, and leaned for-
ward, very earnestly. " California isn't real the way this
is," he told her, " the women were just paint and powder,
like things you would see in a fever, and then you'd wake
up, in Cottarsport, well again, with you, Olive."

She managed to smile at him in acknowledgment of
this.

" I'm desperately glad I pulled through without many
scars. But there are some, Olive; that was bound to be.
I don't know if a man had better say an3^ing about the
past, or just let it be, and go on. Times I think one
and then the other. Yet you are so calm sitting here, and
so good, it would be a big help to tell you . . . Olive, out
on the American, and God knows how sorry I've been, I
killed a man, Olive."

Slowly she felt herself turning icy cold, except for the
hot blood rushing into her head. She stared at him for a
moment, horrified; and then mechanically drew back,
scraping the chair across the floor. Perhaps she hadn't
understood, but certainly he had said

" Wait till I say what I can for myself," be hurried on,

[259]

GOLD AND IRON

foUowing her. ** It was when the four of us were WQrking
with a rocker. I was shoveling the gravel, and everyone
in California knows that when you're doing that, and find
a nugget over half an ounce, it belongs to you personal
and not to the partnership. Well, I came on a big one,
and laid it away, they all saw it; and then this Eddie
Lukens hid it out on me. He was the only one near
where I had it, he broke it up and put it in the cradle,
sure; and in the talk that followed I — I shot him."

He laid a detaining hand on her shoulder but she
wrenched herself away.

'* Don't touch me I " she breathed. She thought she saw
him bathed in the blood of the man he had slain. Her
lips formed a sentence, " * Thou shalt not kill.* "

" I was tried at Spanish Bar," he continued, " Miners'
law is better than you hear in the East, it's quick — it
has to be — but in the main it's serious and right. I was
tried with witnesses and a jury and they let me off, they
justified me. That ought to go for something."

" Don't ccHne near me," she cried, choking, filled with
dread and utter loathing. '* How can you stand there and
— stand there, a murderer, with a life on your heart 1
What "

His face quivered with concern; in spite of her words
he drew near her again, repeating the fact that he had
been judged, released. Olive Stanes' hysteria vanished
before the cold stability which came to her assistance, the
sense of being rooted in her creed.

" * Thou shalt not kill,' " she echoed.

The emotion faded from his features, his countenance
once more became masklike, the jaw was hard and sharp,

[260]

THE DARK FLEECE

his eyes narrowed. " It's all over then ? " he asked. She
nodded, her lips pinched into a white line.

"What else could be hoped? Blood guiltiness. O
Jason, pray to save your soul."

He moved over to where his high silk hat reposed,
secured it, and turned. " This will be final," he stated
hardly. Olive stood slightly swaying, with closed eyes.
Then she remembered the buckskin bag of not yellow but
scarlet gold. She stumbled forward to it and thrust the
weight in his hand. Jason Burrage's fingers closed on the
gift, while his gaze rested on her from imder contracted
brows. He was, it seemed, about to speak, but instead
preserved an intense silence; he looked once more about
the room still and old in its lamplight. Why didn't he
go I Then she saw that she was alone:

Like the eternal rock outside the door.

From above came the dear, joyous voice of Rhoda sing-
ing. Olive crumpled into a chair — soon Jem would
be back. . . . She turned and slipped down upon the floor
in an agony of prayer.

VIII

Honora Canderay saw Jason Burrage on the day after
his arrival in Cottarsport: he was walking through the
town with a set, inattentive countenance; and, although
she was in the chaise and leaned forward, speaking in her
ringing voice, it was evident that he had not noticed her.
She thought his expression gloomy for a man returned with
a fortune to his marriage. Honora still dwelt upon him as

[261]

GOLD AND IRON

she slowly progressed through the capricious streets, and
mounted toward the hills beyond. He presented, she de-
cided, an extraordinary, even faintly comic, appearance in
Cottarsport with a formal black coat open on a startling
waistcoat and oppressive gold chain, pale trousers and a
silk hat

Such clothes, theatrical in effect, were inevitable to his
changed condition and necesss^y stationary taste. Yet,
considering, she shifted the theatrical to dramatic: in an
obscure but palpable manner Jason did not seem cheap.
He never had in the past. And now, while his inappro-
priate overdressing in the old town of loose and weathered
raiment brought a smile to her firm lips, there was still
about him the air which from the beginning had made him
more noticeable than his fellows. It had even been added
to — by the romance of his journey and triumph.

She suddenly realized that, by chance, she had stumbled
on the one term which more than any other might con-
tain Jason. Romantic Yes, that was the explanation
of his power to stir always an interest in him, vaguely sug-
gest such possibilities as he had finally accomplished, the
venture to California and return with gold and the com-
plicated watch chain. She had said no more to him than
to the other Cottarsport youth and young manhood, per-
haps a dozen sentences in a year; but whereas the others
merged into a composite image of fuzzy chins, reddened
knuckles and inept, choked speech, Jason Burrage re-
mained a slightly sullen individual with potentialities.
He had never remained long in her mind, nor had any
actual part in her life — her mother's complete indifference
to Cottarsport had put a barrier between its acutely inde-

[262]

THE DARK FLEECE

pendent spirit and the Canderays — but she had been
easily conscious of his special quality.

That in itself was no novelty to her experience of a
metropolitan and distinguished society: what now kept
Jason in her thoughts was the fact that he had made his
capability serve his mood; he had taken himself out into
the world and there, with what he was, succeeded. His
was not an ineffectual condition — a longing, a possibility
that, without the power of accomplishment, degenerated
into a mere attitude of bitterness. Just such a state, for
example, as enveloped herself.

The chaise had climbed out of Cottarsport, to the crown
of the hei^t under which it lay, and Honora ordered
Coggs, a coachman all but decrepit with age, to stop. She
half turned and looked down over the town with a veiled,
introspective gaze. From here it was hardly more than a
narrow rim of roofs about the bright water, broken by
the white bulk of her dwelling and the courthouse square.
The hills, turning roundly down, were sere and showed
everywhere the grey glint of rock; Cottar's Neck already
appeared wintry; a diminished wind, drawing in through
the Narrows, flattened the smoke of the chimneys below.

Cottarsport!

The word, with all its implications, was so vivid in her
mind that she thought she must have spoken it aloud.
Cottarsport and the Canderays — now one solitary woman.
She wondered again at the curious and involved hold the
locality had upon her; its tyranny over her birth and
destiny. It was comparatively easy to understand the
influence the place had exerted on her father: commencing
with his sixteenth year his life had been spent, until his

[263]

GOLD AND IRON

retirement from the sea, in arduous voyages to far ports
and cities. His first command — the anchor had been
weighed on his twentieth birthday — had been of a brig
to Zanzibar for a cargo of gum copal; his last a storm-
battered journey about, apparently, all the perilous capes
of the world. Then he had been near fifty, and the space
between was a continuous record of struggle with savage
and faithless peoples, strange latitudes and currents and
burdensome responsibilities.

Her mother, too, presented no insuperable obstacle to a
sufficient comprehension — a noted beauty in a gay and
self-indulgent society, she had passed through a trium-
phant period without forming any attachment. An in-
ordinate amount of champagne had been uncorked in her
honor, compliment and service and offers had made up her
daily round; until, almost impossibly exacting, she had
found herself beyond her early radiance, in the first tragic
realization of decline. Stopping, perhaps, in the midst
of slipping her elegance of body into a party dress, she
remembered that she was thirty-five — just Honora's age
at present. The compliments and offers had lessened,
she was in a state of weary revulsion when Ithiel Canderay
— bronzed and despotic and rich — had appeared be-
fore her and, the following day, urged marriage.

Yes, it was easy to see why the shipmaster, desirous
of peace after the unpeaceful sea, should build his house
in the still,- old port the tradition of which was in his
blood. It was no more difficult to understand how his
wife, always a little tired now from the beginning ill ef-
fects of ceaseless balls and wineing, should welcome a
spacious, quiet house and unflagging, patient care.

[264]

THE DARK FLEECE

All this was clear; and, in a way, it made her own
position logical — she was the daughter, the repository, of
such varied and yet unified forces. In moments of calm,
such as this, Honora could be successfully philosophical.
But she was not always placid; in fact she was placid but
an insignificant part of her waking hours. She was ordi*
narily filled with emotions that, having no outlet, kept
her stirred up, half resentful, and half desirous of things
which she yet made no extended effort to obtain.

Honora told herself daily that she detested Cottarsport,
she intended to sell her house, give it to the town, and
move to Boston. But, after three or four weeks in the
city, a sense of weariness and nostalgia would descend
upon her — the bitterness of her mother lived over again
— and drive her back to the place she had left with such
decided expressions of relief.

This was the root of her not large interest in Jason
Burrage — he, too, she had always felt, had had possi-
bilities outside the local life and fish industry; and he
had gone forth and justified, realized, them. He had
broken away from the enormous pressure of custom, per-
sonal habit, and taken from life what was his. But she,
Honora Canderay, had not had the courage to break away
from an existence Without incentive, without reward.
Something of this might commonly find excuse in the
fact that she was a woman, and that the doors of life and
experience, except one, were closed to her; but, indi-
vidually, she had little use with this supine attitude. Her
blood was too domineering. She consigned such inhibi-
tions to pale creatures like Olive Stanes.

[265]

GOLD AND IRON

DC

The sun, sinking toward the plum colored hills on
the left, cast a rosy glow over low-piled clouds at the
far horizon, and the water of the harbor seemed scat-
tered with the petals of crimson peonies. The air dark-
ened perceptibly. For a moment the grey town on the
fading water, the distant flushed sky, were charged with
the vague unrest of the flickering day. Suddenly it was
colder, and Honora, drawing up her shawl, sharply com-
manded Coggs to drive on.

She was going to fetch Paret Fifleld from the steam
railway station nearest Cottarsport. He visited her at
regular intervals — ^although the usual period had been
doubled since she*d seen him — and asked her with un-
failing formality to be his wife. Why she hadn't agreed
long ago — except that Paret was Boston personified — she
did not understand. In the mcsnents when she fled to
the city she always intended to have him come to her at
once. But, scarcely arrived, her determination would
waver, and her thoughts automatically, against her will,
return to Cottarsport.

Studying him, as they drove back through the early
dusk, she was surprised that he had been so long-suflering.
He was not a patient type of man; rather he was the
quietly aggressive, suavely selfish, example for whom the
world, success, had been a very simple matter. He was
not solemn, either, or a recluse, as faithful lovers com-
monly were; but furnished a leading figure in the cotil-
lions and had a nice capacity for wine. She said almost
complainingly:

[266]

THE DARK FLEECE

" How young and gay you look, Paret, with your lemon
verbena."

He was, it seemed to her, not entirely at ease, and
almost confused at her statement. Nevertheless, he gave
his person a swiftly complacent glance.

" I do seem quite well," he agreed surprisingly. " Hon-
ora, I'm the next thing to fifty. Would anyone guess it?"

This was a new aspect of Paret's, and she studied him
keenly, with the slightly satirical mouth inherited from her
father. Embarrassment became apparent at his exhibition
of trivial pride, and nothing more was said until, wind-
ing through the gloom of Cottarsport, they had reached
her house. Inside there was a wide hall with the stair
mounting on the right under a panelled arch. Mrs. Coz-
zens, Honora's aunt and companion, was in the drawing
room when they entered, and greeted Paret Fifield with
the simple friendliness which, clearly without disagree-
able intent, she showed only to an unquestionable few.

After dinner, the elder woman winding wool from an
ivory swift clamped to a table, Honora thought that Paret
had never been so vivacious; positively he was silly. For
no comprehensible reason her mind turned to Jason Bur-
rage, striding with a lowered head, in his incongruous
clothes, through the town of his birth.

" I wonder, Paret," she remarked, " if you remember
two men who went from here to California about ten
years ago? Well, one of them is back with his pockets
full of gold and a silk hat. He was engaged to Olive
Stanes ... I suppose their wedding will happen at any
time. You see, he was faithful like yourself, Paret."

The man's back was toward her, he was examining, as

[267]

GOLD AND IRON

he had for every visit Honora could recall, the curious ob-
jects in a lacque^ cabinet brought frcxn over seas by
Ithiel Canderay, and it was a noticeably long time before
he turned. Mrs. Cozzens, the Shetland converted into a
ball, rose and announced her intention of retiring; a
thin, erect figure in black mcnre with a long countenance
and agate brown eyes, seed pearls, gold band bracelets
and Venise point cap.

When she had gone the silence in the room became op-
pressive. Honora was thinking of her life in connection
with Paret Fifield, wondering if she could ever bring
herself to marry him. She would have to decide soon:
it seemed incredible that he was nearing fifty. Why, it
must have been fifteen years ago when he first

" Honora," he pronounced, leaning forward in his
chair, " I came prepared to tell you a particular thing,
but I find it much more difficult than I had anticipated."

" I know," she replied, and her voice, the fact she
stated, seemed to ccsne from a consciousness other than
hers, " you are going to get married."

" Exactly," he said with a deep, relieved sigh.

She had on a dinner dress looped with a silk ball
fringe, and her fingers automatically played with the
hanging ornaments as she studied him with a composed
face.

" How old IS she, Paret? " Honora asked presently.

He cleared his throat in an embarrassed manner. " Not
quite nineteen, I believe."

She nodded and her expression grew imperceptibly
colder. A slight but actual irritation at him, a palpable
anger, shocked her, which she was careful to screen from

[268]

THE DARK FLEECE

her maimer and voice. " You will be very happy, cer-
tainly. A young wife would suit ycM perfectly. You
have kept splendidly young, Paret."

" She is really a superb creature, Honora," he f)roceeded
gratefully. *^ I must bring her to you. But I am going
to miss this," he indicated the grave chamber in which
they sat, the white marble mantel and high mirror, the
heavy mahogany settled back in half shadow, the dark vel-
vet draperies of the large windows sweeping from ala-
baster cornices.

** Sometimes I feel like burning it to the ground," she
asserted, rising. '^ I would if I could bum all that it sig-
nifies, yes, and a great deal of myself, too." She raised
her arms in a vivid, passionate gesture. ''Leave it all
behind and sail up to Java Head and through the Sunda
Strait, into life."

After the difficulty of his announcement Paret Fifield
talked with animation about his plans and approaching
marriage. Honora wondered at the swiftness with which
she — for so long a fundamental part of his thought —
had dropped from his mind* It had the aspect of a
physical act of seclusion, as if a door had been closed
upon her, the last, perhaps, leading out of her isolation.
She hadn't been at all sure that she would not marry
Paret: today she had almost decided in favor of such a
consummation of her existence.

A girl not quite nineteen! She had been only twenty
when Paret Fifield had first danced with her. He had
been interested immediately. It was difficult for her to
realize that she was now thirty-five, soon forty would be
upon her, and then a grey reach. She didn't feel any

[269]

GOLD AND IRON

older than she had, well — on the day that Jason Barrage
departed for California. There wasn't a line on her
face; no trace, yet, of time on her spirit or body; but the
dust must inevitably settle on her as 'it did on a vase
standing unmoved on a shelf. A vase was a tranquil ob-
ject, well suited to glimmer from a comer through a dec-
ade; but she was different. The heritage of her father's
voyaging stirred in her together with the negation that held
her stationary. A third state — a hot rebellion, poured
through her, while she listened to Paret's facile periods.
Really, he was rather ridiculous about the girl. She was
conscious of the dull pounding of her heart.

X

The morning following was remarkably warm and
fitill; and, after Paret Fifiield had gone, Honora
made her way slowly down to the bay. The sunlight
lay like thick yellow dust on the warehouses and
docks, and the water filled the sweep of Cottar's Neck
with a solid and smoothly blue expanse. A fishing
boat, newly arrived, was being disgorged of partly cured
haddock. The cargo was loaded into a wheelbarrow,
transferred to the wharf, and there turned into a basket
on a weighing scale, checked by a silent man in series of
marks on a small book, and carried away. Beyond were
heaped corks and spread nets and a great red of fine cord.

When Honora walked without an objective purpose she
always came finally to the water. It held no surprise for
her, there was practically nothing she was directly in-

[270]

THE DARK FLEECE

terested in seeing. She stood — as at present — gazing
down into the tide clasping the piles, or away at the
horizon, the Narrows opening upon the sea. She ex-
changed unremarkable sentences with familiar figures,
watched the men swab decks or tail new cordage through
blocks, and looked up absently at the spars of the
schooners lying at anchor.

She had put on a summer dress again of white India
bar6ge, a little hat with a lavender bow, and stood with
her silk shawl on an arm. The stillness of the day was
broken only by the creak of the wheelbarrow. Last night
she had been rebellious, but now a lassitude had settled
over her: all emotion seemed blotted out by the pouring
yellow light of the sun.

At the side of the wharf a small warehouse held several
men in the office, the smoke of pipes lifting slowly from
the open door; and, at the sound of footfalls, she turned
and saw Jem Stanes entering the building. His expres-
sion was surprisingly morose. It was, she thought again
as she had of Jason Burrage striding darkly along the
street, singularly inopportune at the arrival of so much
good fortune. A burr of voices, thickened by the salt
spray of many sea winds, followed. She heard laughter,
and then Jem's voice indistinguishable but sullenly angry.

Honora progressed up into the town, walked past the
courthouse square, and met Jason at the comer of the
street. " I am glad to have a chance to welcome you,"
she said, extending her hand. Close to him her sense
of familiarity faded before the set face, the tightly drawn
lips and hard gaze. She grew a little embarrassed. He
had on another, still more surprising waistcoat, his watch

[271]

GOLD AND IRON

chain was ponderous with gold; but dust had accumulated
unattended on his shoulders, and dinuned the luster of
his boots.

" Thank you," he replied non-committally, giving her
palm a brief pressure. He stood silently, without cor-
diality, waiting for what might follow.

"You are safely back with the Golden Fleece," die
continued more hurriedly, " after yoking the fiery bulls
and sailing past the islands of the sirens."

" I don't know about all that," he said stolidly.

" Jason and the Argonauts," she insisted, conscious of
her stupidity. He was far more compelling than she had
remembered, than he appeared from a distance: the
marked discontent of his earlier years had given place
to a certain power, repose: the romance which she had
decided was his main characteristic was emphasized. She
was practically conversing with a disconcerting stranger.

" Olive was, of course, delighted," she went resolutely
on. " You must marry soon, and build a mansion."

" We are not going to marry at all," he stated baldly.

"Oh — ! " she exclaimed and then crimsoned with an-
noyance at the involuntary syllable. That idiot, Olive
Stanes, she added to herself instantly. Honora could
think of nothing appropriate to say. "That's a great
pity," she temporized. Why didn't the boor help her?
Hadn't he the slightest conception of the obligations of
polite existence? He stood motionless, the fingers of one
hand clasping a jade charm. However she, Honora
Canderay, had no intention of being affronted by Jason
Burrage.

" You must find it pale here after California, if what

[272]

THE DARK FLEECE

I've heard is true," she remarked crisply, then nodded
and left him. That night at supper she repeated the bur-
den of what he had told her to her aimt. The latter an-
swered in a measured voice without any trace of interest:

" I thought something of the kind had happened, the
upstairs girl was saying he was drunk last night. A habit
acquired West, I don't doubt. It is remarkable, Honora,
how you remember one from another in Cottarsport.
They all appear indifferently alike to me. And I am
tremendously upset about Paret.*'

"Well, I*m not," Honora returned. She spoke inat-
tentively, and she was surprised at the truth she had
exposed. Paret Fifield had never become a necessary part
of her existence. Except for the light he had shed upon
herself — the sudden glimpse of multiplying years and
the emptiness of her days — his marriage was unimpor-
tant. She would miss him exactly as she might a piece
of furniture that had been removed after forming a fa-
miliar spot. She was more engrossed in what her aunt
had told her about Jason.

He had been back only two or three days, and already
lost his promised wife and got drunk. The latter was dif-
ferent in Cottarsport from San Francisco, or even Boston;
in such a small place as this every act offered the sub-
stance for talk, opinion, as long-lived as the elms on the
hills. It was foolish of him not to go away for such
excesses. Honora wanted to tell him so. She had in-
herited her father's attitude toward the town, she thought,
a personal care of Cottarsport as a whole, necessarily ex-
pressed in an attention toward individual acts and people.
She wished Jason wouldn't make a fool of himself.

[273]

GOLD AND IRON

Then she recalled how meffectual the same desire, actually
stated, had been in connection with Olive Stanes. She
recalled Olive's horrified face as she, Honora, had said,
" Grace be dammed 1 " It was all quite hopeless. " I
think I'll move to the city," she informed her aunt.

The latter sighed, from, Honora knew, a sense of su-
perior knowledge and resignation.

After supper she deserted the more familiar drawing
room for the chamber across the wide hall. A fire of coals
was burning in an open grate, but there was no other light.
Honora sat at a piano with a ponderous ebony case, and
picked out Violetta's first aria from Traviata. The round
sweet notes seemed to float away palpable and intact into
the gloom. It was an unusual mood, and when it had
gone she looked back at it in wonderment and distrust.
Her customary inner rebellion re-established itself per-
haps more vigorously than before: she was charged with
energy, with vital promptings, but found no opportunity,
promise, of expression or accomplishment.

The warm sun lingered for a day or so more, and then
was obliterated by an imponderable bank of fog that rolled
in through the Narrows, over Cottar's Neck, and changed
even the small confines of the town into a vast labyrinth.
That, in turn, was dissipated by a swinging eastern storm,
tipped with hail, which left stripped trees on an ashen
blue sky and dark, frigid water slapping uneasily at the
water front.

Honora Canderay's states of mind were as various and
similar.

[274]

THE DARK FLEECE

XI

Her outer aspect, however, unlike the weather,
showed no evidence of change: as usual she drove
in the chaise on afternoons when it was not too cold;
she appeared, autocratic and lavish, in the shops of
Citron Street; she made her usual, aimless excursions
to the harbor. Jem Stanes, she saw, was still a
deck hand on the schooner Gloriana. Looking back to
the morning when he had scowlingly entered the of&ce on
the wharf she was able to reconstruct the cause of his ill
humor — a brother-in-law to Jason Burrage was a person
of far different employment from an ordinary Stanes.
She passed Olive on the street, but the latter, except for
a perfunctory greeting, hurried immediately by.

The stories of Jason's reckless conduct multiplied — he
had consumed a staggering amount of Medford rum and,
in the publicity of noon and Marlboro Street, sat upon the
now notable silk hat. He had paid for some cheroots with
a pinch of gold dust as they were said to do in the far
West. He carried a loaded derringer, and shot " for fun "
the jar of colored water in the apothecary's window, and
had threatened, with a grim face, to do the same for who-
ever might interfere with his pleasures. He was, she
learned, rapidly becoming a local scandal and menace.

If it had been anyone but Jason Burrage, native bom
and folded in the glamour of his extraordinary fortune,
he would have been immediately and roughly suppressed:
Honora well knew the rugged and severe temper of the
town. As it was he went about — attended by its least

[275]

GOLD AND IRON

desirable element, a chorus to magnify his liberality and
daring — in an atmosphere of wonderment and excited
curiosity.

This, she thought, was highly regrettable. Yet, in his
present frame of mind, what else was there for him to do?
He couldn't be expected to take seriously, be lost in, the
petty affairs of Cottarsport; beyond a limited amount the
gold for which he had endured so much — she had heard
something of his misfortunes and struggle — was useless
here; and, without balance, he must inevitably drift into
still greater debauch in large cities.

He was now a frequently recurring figure in her thought
In the correct presence of her aunt, Mrs. Cozzens, in
delicate clothes and exact surroundings, the light of an
astral lamp on her sharply cut, slightly contemptuous face,
she would consider the problem of Jason Burrage. In a
way, which she had more than once explained and justified
to herself, she felt responsible for him. If there had been
anything to suggest she would have gone to him directly,
but she had no intention of offering a barren condemna-
tion. Her peculiar position in Cottarsport, while it indi-
cated certain obligations, required the maintenance of an
impersonal plane. Why, he might say anything to her;
he was quite capable of telling her — and correctly — to
go to the devil I

A new analogy was created between Jason Burrage and
herself: his advantage over her had broken down, they
both appeared fast in untoward circumstance beyond their
power to alleviate or shape. He had come back to Cot-
tarsport in the precise manner in which she had returned
from shorter but equally futile excursions. Jason had his

[276]

THE DARK FLEECE

money which at once established necessities and made sat-
isfaction impossible; and she had promptings, desires,
that by reason of their mere being, allowed her neither
contentment in the spheres of a social importance nor here
in the quiet place where so much of her was rooted. Gaz-
ing at her Aunt Herriot^s hard, fine profile the thought
of her, Honora Canderay's, resemblance to the returned
miner carousing with the dregs of the town brought a
shade of ironic amusement to her countenance.

Honora left the house, walking, in the decline of a No^
vember afternoon. She had been busy in a small way,
supervising the filling of camphor chests for the winter,
and, intensely disliking any of the duties of domesticity,
she was glad to escape into the still, cold open. Dusk
was not yet perceptible but the narrow, erratic ways of
Cottarsport were filling with clear, grey shadow. When,
inevitably, she found herself at the harbor's edge, she pro-
gressed over a narrow wharf to its end. It had been wet,
and there were patches of black, icy film; the water near
by was grey-black, but about the bare thrust of Cottar's
Neck it was green; the warehouses behind her were blank
and deserted.

She had on a cloak lined with ermine, and she drew it
closer about her throat at the frigid air lifting from the
bay. Suddenly a flare of color filled the somber space,
a coppery glow that glinted like metal shavings on the
water and turned Cottar's Neck red. Against the sunset
the town was formless, murky; biit the sky and harbor
resembled the interior of a burnished kettle. The effect
was extraordinarily unreal, melodramatic, and she was
watching the color fade, when a figure wavered out of

[277]

GOLD AND IRON

the shadows and moved insecurely toward her. At first
she thought the stumbling progressions were caused by
the ice: then she saw that it was Jason Burrage, drunk.

He wore the familiar suit of broadcloth, with no outer
covering, and a rough hat pulled down upon his fixed
gaze. She stood motionless while he approached, and
then calmly met his heavy interrogation.

"Honora," he articulated, "Honora Canderay, one —
one of the great Canderays of Cottarsport — Well, why
don't you say something? Too set up for a civil, for
a "

" Don't be ridiculous, Jason," she replied crisply; " and
do go home — you'll freeze out here as you are."

" One of the great Canderays," he reiterated, con-
temptuously. He came very dose to her. " You're not
much. Here they think you. . . . But I've been to Cali-
fornia, and at the Jenny Lind ... in silk like a blue
bird, and sing . Nobody ever heard of the Can-
derays in 'Frisco, but they know Jason Burrage, Burrage
who had all the bad luck there was, and then struck it
rich."

He swayed perilously, and she put out a palm and
steadied him. " Go back. You are not fit to be around."

Jason struck her hand down roughly. " I'm fitter
than you. What are you, anyway? " he caught her shoul-
der in vise-like fingers. ''Nothing but a woman, that's
all — just a woman."

" You are hurting me," she said fearlessly.

His grip tightened, and he studied her, his eyes in-
human in a stony, white face. ''Nothing more than
that."

[278]

THE DARK FLEECE

" You are very surprising," she responded. " Do you
know, I had never thought of it. And it's true; that is
precisely what and all I am."

His expression became troubled; he released her,
stepped back, slipped, and almost fell into the water.
Honora caught his arm and dragged him to the middle
of the wharf. " A dam' Canderay," he muttered. " And
I'm better, Jason Burrage. Ask them at the El Dorado,
or Indian Bar; but that's gone — the early days. All
scientific now. We got the dead wood on gold . . .
Cyanide."

"Come home," she repeated brusquely, turning him,
with a slight push, toward the town settled in darkness.
It sent him falling forward in the direction she wished.
Honora supported him, led him on. At intervals he
hung back, stopped. His speech became confused, then,
it appeared, his reason commenced slowly to return. The
streets were empty; a lamp shone dimly on its post at a
comer; she guided Jason round a sunken space.

Honora had no sense of repulsion; she was conscious
of a faint pity, but her energy came dimly from that feel-
ing of obligation; once more she told herself inherited
from her father — their essential attitude to Cottarsport.
At the same time she found herself studying his face
with a personal curiosity. She was glad that it was not
weak, that rum had been ineffectual to loosen its hardness.
He n6w seemed capable of walking alone, and she stood
aside.

Jason was at a loss for words; his lips moved, but
inaudibly. " Keep away from the water," she com-
manded, "or from Medford rum. And, some evening

[279]

GOLD AND IRON

•

soon, came to see me." She said this without pre-
meditation, from an instinct beyond her searching.

*' I can't do that," he replied in a surprisingly rational
voice, *^ because I've lost my silk hat."

''There are hundreds for sale in Boston," she an-
nounced impatiently; '' go and get another."

" That never came to me," he admitted, patently struck
by this course of rehabilitation through a new high hat.
" There was something I had to say to you but it left my
mind, about a — a gold fleece; it turned into something
else, on the wharf."

''When you see me again," she moved farther from
him, suddenly in a great necessity to be hcnne. She
left him, talking at her, and went swiftly through the
gloom to Regent Street. Letting herself into the still
hall, the amber serenity of lamplight in suave spacious-
ness, she swung shut the heavy door with a startling vigor.
Then she stood motionless, the cape slipping frcMtn her
shoulders in glistening and soft white folds about her
arms, to the carpet. Honora wasn't faint, not for a mo-
ment had she been afraid of Jason Burrage, this was not
a rebellion of over-strung nerves, yet a passing blindness, a
spiritual shudder, possessed her. She had the sensa-
tion of having just passed through an overwhelming ad-
venture: yet all that had happened was commonplace,
even sordid. She had met a drunken man whom she
hardly knew beyond his name and an adventitious fact,
and insisted on his going home. Asking him to call on
her had been little less than perfunctory — an impersonal
act of duty.

Yet her being vibrated as if a loud and disturbing bell

[280]

THE DARK FLEECE

had been unexpectedly sounded at her ear; she was re-
sponding to an imperative summons. In her rocHn chang-
ing for supper, this feeling vanished, and left her usual
introspective humor. Jason had spoken a profound truth,
which her surprise had recognized at the time, in remind-
ing her that she was an ordinary woman, like, for in-
stance, Olive Stanes. The isolation of her dignity had
hidden that from her for a number of years. She had
come to think of herself exclusively as a Canderay.

Later her sharp enjoyment in probing into all preten-
sions, into herself, got slightly the better of her. " I saw
Jason Burrage this evening,"" she told Mrs. Cozzens.

" If he was sober," that individual returned, " it might
be worth recalling."

** But he wasn't. He nearly fell into the harbor. I
asked him to see us."

" With your education, Honora, there is really no ex-
cuse for confusing the singular and plural. I haven't
any doubt you asked him here, but that has nothing to
do with us."

*' You might be amused by his accounts of California.
For, although you never complain, I can< see that you
think it dull."

" I am an old woman," Herriot Cozzens stated, " my
life was quite normally full, and I am content here with
you. Any dullness you speak of I regret for another
reason."

" You are afraid 111 get preserved like a salted had-
dock. He may not come."

[281]

1

GOLD AND IRON

XII

Honora was in the less formal of the drawing rooms
when Jason Barrage was announced. He came forward
almost immediately, in the most rigorous evening attire,
a new silk hat on his arm.

'I You had no trouble getting one," she nodded in its
direction.

" Four," he replied tersely.

Jason took a seat facing her across an open space of
darkly flowered carpet, and Honora studied him, directly
critical. Against a vague background his countenance
was extraordinarily pronounced, vividly pallid. His
black hair swept in a soft wave across a brow with in-
dented temples, his nose was short with wide nostrils, the
lower part of his face square. His hands, scarred and
discolored, rested each on a black-clad knee.

She was in no hurry to begin a conversation which
must be either stilted, uncomfortable, or reach beyond
known confines. For the moment her daring was pas-
sive. Jason Burrage stirred his feet, and she attended
the movement with thoughtful care. He said unexpect-
edly:

" I believe I've never been in here before," he turned
and studied his surroundings as if in an effort of
memory. "But I talked to your father once in the
hall."

'^ Nothing has been changed," she answered almost un-
intelligibly. " Very little does in Cottarsport."

" That's so," he assented. " I saw it when I came

[282]

THE DARK FLEECE

back. It was just the same, but I " he stopped and

his expression became gloomy.

" If you mean that you were different you are wrong,"
she declared concisely. " Just that has made trouble for
you — you have been unable to be anything but your-
self. I am like that, too. Everyone is."

" I have been through things," he told her enigmatically.
"Why look — just the trip: to Charges on the Isthmus,
and then mules and canoes through that ropey woods to
Panama, with thousands of prospectors waiting for the
steamer. Then back by Mazatlan, Mexico City and Vera
Cruz. A man sees things."

Her inborn uneasiness at rooms, confining circumstance,
her restless desire for unlimited horizons, for the mere
fact of reaching, moving, stirred into being at the names
he repeated. Tomorrow she would go away, find some-
thing new —

" It must have been horridly rough and dirty."

"A good many turned back or died," he added ten-
tatively. " But after you once got there a sort of crazi-
ness came over you — you couldn't wait to buy a pan or
shovel. The bay was full of rotting ships deserted by
their crews, a thicket of masts with even the sails still
hanging to them. The men jumped overboard to get
ashore and pick up gold."

She thought with a pang of the idle ships with sprung
rigging, sodden canvas lumpily left on the decks, rotting
as he had said, in files. The image afflicted her like a
physical pain, and she left it hurriedly. "But San
Francisco must have been full of life."

" You had to shout to be heard over the bands, and

[283]

%

GOLD AND IRON

eveiythmg blazing. P3nramids of nuggets on the gam-
bling tables. Gold dust and champagne and mud."

"Whatever will you find here?" She immediately
regretted her query, which seemed to search improperly
into the failure of his marriage.

" I'm thinking of going back," he admitted.

Curiously Honora was sorry to hear this, unreason*-
ably it gave to Cottarsport a new aspect of barrenness,
the vista of her own life reached interminable and
monotonous into the future. And she was certain that,
without the necessity and incentive of labor, it would
be destructive for Jason to return to San Francisco.

"What would you do?"

" Gamble," he replied cynically.

"Admirable prospect," she said lightly. Her man-
ner unmistakably conveyed the informaticm that his call
had drawn to an end. He clearly resisted this for a min-
ute or two, and then stirred.

" You must come again."

"Why?" he demanded abruptly, grasping his hat,
which had reposed on the carpet at his side.

"News from California, from the world outside, is
rare in Cottarsport. You must see that you are an in-
teresting figure to us."

"Why?" he persisted, frowning.

She rose, her face as hard as his own, but with a faint
smile in place of his lowering expression. "No, you
haven't changed; not even to the extent of a superficial
knowledge of drawing rooms."

"I ought to have seen better than onne."

"The ignorance was all my own."

[284]

THE DARK FLEECE

" But once " he paused.

" Should be enough," her smile widened. Yet she
was furious with herself for having quarreled with
him; the descent from the altitude of the Canderays had
been enormous. What extraordinary influence had col-
ored her acts in* the past few days?

Mrs. Cozzens, at breakfast, inquired placidly how
the evening before had progressed, and Honora made
a gesture expressive of its difficulties. " You will create .
such responsibilities for yourself,'' the elder stated.

This one, it suddenly appeared to Honora, had been
thrust upon her. She made repeated and angry efforts
to put Jason Burrage from her mind; but his appear-
ance sitting before her, his words and patent discon-
tent, flooded back again and again. She realized now
that he was no impersonal problem; somehow he had
got twisted into the fibres of her existence; he was more
vividly in her thoughts than Paret Fifield had ever been.
She attempted to ridicule him mentally, and called up
pictures of his preposterous clothes, the ill-bred waist-
coats and ponderous watch chain. They faded before
the memory of the set jaw, his undeniable romance.

Wrapped in fur she elected to drive after dinner; the
day was cold but palely dear, and she felt that her
cheeks were glowing with unusual color. Above the town,
on the hills now sere with frost and rock, the horses,
under the aged guidance of Cpggs, continually dropped
from a jog trot to an ambling walk. Honora paid no
attention to the gait, she was impervious to the wide,
glittering reach of water; and she was startled to find
herself abreast a man gazing into the chaise.

[28S]

GOLD AND IRON

" I made a jackass out of myself last night," he ob-
served gloomily.

She automatically stopped the carriage and held back
the buffalo robe. Jason hesitated, but was forced to
take a seat at her side. Honora said nothing, and the
horses again wei)ft forward.

" I'd been drinking a lot and was all on edge," he
volunteered further. "I feel different today. I can
remember your mother driving like this. I was a boy
then, and used to think she was made of ice; wondered
why she didn't run away in the sun."

" Mother was very kind, really," Honora said ab-
sently. She was relaxed against the cushions, the coun-
try dipped and spread before her in a restful brown
garb; she watched Coggs' glazed hat sway against the
sky. The old sense of familiarity with Jason Burrage
came back: why not, since she had known him all their
lives? And now, after his years away, she was the
only one in Cottarsport who at all comprehended his
difficulties. He was not a commonplace man, strength
was never that; ^and, in a way, he had the quality
which more than any other had made her father so no-
table. And he was not unpleasant so close beside her.
That was of overwhelming importance in the forma-
tion of her intimate opinion of him. He had been re-
fined by the bitterness of his early failure in California;
he bore himself with a certain dignity.

" What'll I do? " he demanded abruptly.

For the life of her she couldn't tell him. Except for
platitudes she could offer no solution against the fu-
ture. Actual living, directly viewed, was like that —

[286]

THE DARK FLEECE

hopeless of exterior solution. " I don't know," she
admitted; " I wish I did; I wish I could help
you."

"This money, what's it good for! I can't get my
family to bum two small stoves at once; they'd die in
the kitchen if they had a hundred parlors; I've bought
more clothes than I'll ever wear, four high hats and so
on. Not going to get married; no use for a big house,
for anything more than the room I have. I get plenty
to eat "

"You might do some good with it," she suggested.
The base of what she was saying, Honora realized, wa«
that he would be as well off with his fortune given
away. Yet it was unjust, absurd, for him not to get some
use, pleasure, from what he had worked so extravagantly
to obtain.

" Somehow that wouldn't settle anything, for me," he
replied.

Coggs had turned at the usual limit of her afternoon
driving, and they were slowly moving back to the town.
Cottar's Neck was fading into the early gloom, and a
group of men stared at Jason seated in the Canderays'
chaise as if their eyes were being played with in the
uncertain light.

"Have you thought any more about going West?"
she inquired.

They had stopped for his descent at Marlboro Street,
and he stood with a hand on the wheel. " I had in-
tended to go this morning."

He held her gaze steadily, and she felt a swift cold-
ness touch her into a shiver.

[287]

GOLD AND IRON

"Tomorrow?" this came in a spirit of perversity
against her every other instinct.

"Shall I?"

" Would you be happier in San Francisco? "

Jason Burrage made a hq)eless gesture.

". . . for supper/' Honora found herself saying in a
rush; " at six o'clock. If you aren't bound for Cali-
fornia."

She tried to recall afterward if she had indicated a
particular evening for the invitation. There was a vague
memory of mentioning Thursday. This was Tuesday
. . . Herriot Cozzens would be in Boston.

XIII

A servant told her that Mr. Burrage had arrived when
she was but half ready. She was, in reality, undecided
in her choice of dress for the evening; but finally she
wore soft white silk, with deep, knotted fringe on the
skirt, a low cut neck and a narrow mantle of black
velvet. Her hair, severely plain in its net, was drawn
back from a bang cut across her brow. As she entered
the room where he was standing a palpable admiration
marked his countenance.

He said nothing, however, beyond a conventional
phrase. Such natural reticence had a large part in her
acceptance of him; he did nothing that actively disturbed
her hypercritical being. He was almost distinguished in
appearance. She had a feeling that if it had been dif-
ferent . Honora distinctly wished for a flamboyant

touch about him, it presented a symbol of her command

[288]

THE DARK FLEECE

of any situatioa between them, a reminder of her superior-
ity.

The supper went forward smoothly; there were the
welcome inevitable reminiscences of the rough fare of
California, laughter at the prohibitive cost of beans; and
when, at her direction, he lighted a cheroot, and they
lingered on at the table, Honora's aloofness was becoming
a thing of the past. The smoke gave her an unex-
pected thrill, an extraordinary sense of masculine proxim-
ity. There had been no such blue clouds in the bouse
since her father's death seven years ago. Settled back
contentedly Jason Burrage seemed — why, actually, he
had an air of occupying a familiar place.

It was bitterly cold without, the room into which they
trailed insufficiently warm, and they were drawn close
together at an open Franklin stove. The lamps on the
mantel were distant, and they had not yet been fully
turned up: his face was tinged by the glow of the fire.
An intense face. "What are you thinking about —
me?" she added coolly. "Nothing," he replied, "I'm
too comfortable to think," there was a note of surprise
in his voice, he looked about as if to find reassurance
of his present position. " But if I did it would be this
— that you are entirely different from any woman I've
ever known before. They have always been one of two
kinds — one or the other," he repeated somberly.

"Now you are both together. I don't know as I
ought to say that, if it's nice. I wouldn't like to try
and explain."

"But you must."

" It's your clothes and your manner put against what

[289]

GOLD AND IRON

you are. Oh hdl, what I mean is you're elegant to look
at and good, too."

An expression of the deepest concern followed his
exclamation. He commenced an apology. Hardly
launched, it died on his lips.

Honora was at once conscious of the need for his con-
trition and of the fact that she had never heard a more
entertaining statement. It was evident that he viewed
her as a desirable compound of the women of the El
Dorado and Olive Stanes: an adroit and sincere a»npli-
ment. She wanted to follow it on and on, xmfold its
every exposition; but, of course, that was impossible.
All this she concealed behind an indifferent countenance,
her slim white fingers half embedded in the black mantle.

Jason Burrage lighted another cheroot, and put his feet
up on the polished brass railing of the iron hearth. This
amused her beyond words. She couldn't remember when
she had had another such vitalized evening. She real-
ized that, through the last years, she had been appallingly
lonely; but with Jason smoking beside her in a tilted
chair the solitude was banished. She got a coal for
him in the small, burnished tongs, and he responded with
a prodigious puff that set her to coughing.

When he had gone the house was hatefully vacant; as
she went up to her chamber the empty spaciousness, the
semi-dark well of the stair, the high hall with its low
turned lamp, the blackness of the third story pouring
down over her, oppressed her almost beyond endurance.
Her Aunt Herriot, already old, must be dead before
very long, there was none other of her connections who

[290]

THE DARK FLEECE

could live with her, and she would have to depend on
perfunctory, hired companionship.

Honora saw that she could never escape from the in-
fluence which held her in Cottarsport.

In her room, the door bolted, it was no better. The
interior was large, uncompromisingly square; and,
though every possible light was burning, still it seemed
somber, menacing.

The following day was a lowering void with gusts of
rain driving against the windows. Mrs. Cozzens would
be away until tomorrow, and Honora sat until evening
alone. At times she embroidered, short-lived efforts
broken by despondent and aimless excursions through the
echoing halls.

She attempted to read, to compose herself with an
elaborate gilt and embellished volume called *' The Gar-
land." But, at a Lamentation on the Death of Her
Canary, by a Person of Quality, she deliberately dropped
the book into the burning coals of the Franklin stove.
The satisfaction of seeing the pages crisp and burst into
flame soon evaporated. The day was a calamity, the ap-
proaching murky evening a horror.

At supper she wondered what Jason Burrage was do-
ing. A trace of the odor of his cheroot lingered in the
dining-room. He was an astonishingly solid — the only
actuality in a nebulous world of lofty, flickering ceilings
and the lash of rain. He might as well smoke in her
drawing room as in the Burrage kitchen. Paret Fifield
would have drifted naturally to the Canderay house, but
not Jason, not a native of Cottarsport. . . . With an

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air of determination she sharply pulled the plush, tas-
sded bell rope in the comer.

XIV

She heard the servant open the front door; there was
a pause — Jason was taking off his greatcoat — after
which he entered, calm and without query.

''I was tired of sitting alone," she said with an air
of entire frankness. In a minute or so more it was all
as it had been the evening before — she held a coal
for his cheroot as he tilted back beside her with his feet
on the rail. " You are a very ccanfortable man, Jason,"
she told him.

He made no reply, although a quiver crossed his lips.
Then, after a little, " It's astonishing how soon you get
used to things. Seems as if I had been here for years,
and this is only the third time."

"Have you thought any more of California?"

He faced her with an expression of surprise. " It
had gone clean out of my mind. I suppose I will go
back, though — nothing here for me. I can't come to
see you every evening."

She preserved a silence in which they both fell to star-
ing into a dancing, bluish flame. The gusts of rain
were audible like the tearing of heavy linen. An ex-
traordinary idea had taken possession of Honora — if
the day had been fine, if she had been out in a sparkling
air and sun, a very great deal would have happened
differently. But just what she couldn't then say: the
fact alone was all that she curiously apprehended.

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THE DARK FLEECE

'' I suppose not/' she answered, so long after his last
statement that he gazed questioningly at her. " I won-
der if it has occurred to you," she^continued, " how much
alike we are? I often think about it."

"Why, no," he replied, "it hasn't. Jason Burrage
and Honora Canderayl I wouldn't have guessed it, and
I don't believe anyone else ever has. I'd have a hard
time thinking about two more different. It's — it's
ridiculous," he became seriously animated, "here I am

— well, you know all about me — with some money,
perhaps, and a little of the world in my head; but you're

— you're Honora Canderay."

"You said once that I was nothing but a woman,"
she reminded him.

" I remember that," he admitted with evident chagrin.
" I was drunk."

" That's when the truth is often hit on; I am quite an
ordinary sort of woman."

He laughed indulgently.

" You said last evening I had some of a very common
quality."

"Now you mustn't take that serious," he protested;
" it was just in a way of speech. I told you I couldn't
rightly e^tplain myself."

" Anyhow," she asserted bluntly, " I am lonely. What
will you do about it? "

His amazement turned into a consternation which even
now she found almost laughable. " Me? " he stammered.
"There's no way I can help you. You are having a
joke."

She realized, with a feeling that her knowledge came

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GOLD AND IRON

too late, that she was entirely serious. Jason Burrage
was the only being alive who could give her any assist-
ance, yes, save her from the future. Her hands were
cold, she felt absolutely still, as if she had suddenly
turned into marble, a statue with a heart slightly flut-
tering.

"You could be here a lot," she told him and then
paused, glancing at him swiftly with hard, bright eyes.
He had removed his feet from the stove, and sat with
his cheroot in a poised, awkward hand. She was cer-
tain that he would never speak.

"We might get married."

Honora was startled at the ease with which the words
were pronounced, and conscious of an absurdly trivial
curiosity — she wotidered just how much he had been
shocked by her proposal? She saw that he was stupe-
fied.

Then, " So we might," he pronounced idiotically.
"There isn't any real reason why we shouldn't. That
is — -" he stopped. "Where does the laugh start?"
he demanded.

Suddenly Honora was overwhelmed, not by what she
had said, but by the whole difficulty and inner con-
fusion of her existence. She turned away her head with
an unintelligible period. A silence followed intensified
by the rain flinging against the glass.

" It's a bad night," he muttered.

The banality saved her. Again practically at her ease
she regarded him with slightly smiling lips. " I be-
lieve I've asked you to marry me," she remarked.

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THE DARK FLEECE

"Thank you," said Jason Burrage. He stood up.
" If you mean it, I'd like to very much."

" You'd better sit down," she went on in an impersonal
voice; "there ought to be a lot of things to arrange.
For instance, hadn't we better live on here, for a while
anyhow. It's a big house to waste."

"Honora, you'll just have to stop a little," he as-
serted; " I'm kind of lost. It was quick in California,
but that was a funeral procession compared with you."

Now that it was done, she was frightened. But there
was time to escape even yet. She determined to leave the
room quickly, get away to the safety of her bolted door,
her inviolable privacy. She didn't stir. An immediate
explanation that she hadn't been serious — how could
he have thought it for a moment I — would save her. But
she was silent

A sudden enthusiasm lighted up his immobile face.
" I'll get the prettiest diamond in Boston," he declared.

"You mustn't " she commenced, struggling still

to retreat He misunderstood her.

"The very best," he insisted.

When he had gone she remained seated in the formal
chamber. At any rate she had conquered the emptiness
of her life, of the great square house above her. It was
definitely arranged, they were to marry. How amazed
Herriot Cozzens would be! It was probable that she
would leave Cottarsport, and her, Honora, immediately.
Jason hadn't kissed her, he had not even touched her
hand, in going. He had been extremely subdued, except
at the thought of the ring he would buy for her.

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GOLD AND IRON

There were phases of the future which she resolutely
ignored. ,

Mrs. Cozzens came back as had been planned and
Honora told her at cmce. The older woman expressed
her feeling in contained, acid speech. ^' I am surprised
he had the assurance to ask you."

" Jason didn't," Honora calmly returned.

"It's your father," the elder stated; "he had some
very vulgar blood. I felt that it was a calamity when
my sister accepted him. A Cottarsport person at heart,
just as you arc, always down about the water and those
low docks."

" I'm sure you're right, and so it's much better for me
to find where I belong. I have tried to get away from
Cottarsport, and from the sea and the schooners sailing
in and out the Narrows, a thousand times. But I always
come back, just as father did, back to this little place
from the entire world — China and Africa and New
York. The other influences weren't strong enough. Aunt
Herriot; they only made me miserable; and now I've
killed them. I'll say good-bye to you and Paret and the
cotillions," slie kissed her hand, but not gaily, to a
whole existence irrevocably lost.

With Jason's ring blazing on her slim finger she
drove, the day before the wedding, for the last time as
Honora Canderay. The leaves had been stripped from
the elms on the hills, brown and barren against the flash-
ing, steely water. She saw that Coggs was so impotent
with age that if the horses had been more vigorous he
would be helpless. Coggs had driven for her father,
then her, for thirty years. It was too cold for the old man

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THE DARK FLEECE

to be out today. His cheeks were dark crimson, and
continually wet from his failing eyes.

Herriot Cozzens had left her; Cpggs ... all the
intimate figures of so many years were vanishing. Jason
remained. He had almost entirely escaped annoying
her, and she was conscious of his overwhelming admira-
tion, the ineradicable esteem of Cottarsport for the Can-
derays; but a question, a doubt more obscure than fear,
was taking possession of her. After all she was supremely
ignorant of life; she had been screened from it by pride
and luxurious circumstance; but now she had surrendered
all her advantage. She had given herself to Jason; and
he was life, m3rsterious and rude. The thunder of large,
threatening seas, reaching everywhere beyond the placid
gulf below, beat faintly on her perception.

XV

In an unfamiliar, upper room of the Canderays' house
Jason stood prepared for the signal to descend to his
wedding. The ceremony was to occur at six o'clock; it
was now only five minutes before — he had absently
looked at his watch a great many times in a short space
— and he was living to think seriously of what was
to follow. But in place of tibis he was passing again
through a state of silent, incoherent surprise. This was
the sort of thing for which a man might pindi himself to
discover if he were awake or dreaming. In five, no,
four, minutes now Honora Canderay was to become his,
Jason Burrage's, wife.

A certain complacency had settled over him in the past

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GOLD AND IRON

few days, something of his inborn feeling of tibe Can-
derays as a house apart seemed to have evaporated;
and, in addition, he had risen — Honora wouldn't take
any just happen so: Jason was never notable for humility.
Yet who, even after he had returned from California
with his riches, would have predicted this evening? His
astonishment was as much at himself, illuminated by
extraordinary events, as at any exterior circumstance.
At times he had the ability to see himself, as if from
the outside; and that view, here, was amazing. Why,
only a short while ago he had been drinking rum in the
shed back of " Pack " Clower's hquse, perhaps the least
desirable shed in Cottarsport.

Of one fact, however, he was certain — no more promis-
cuous draughts of Medford. He recognized that he had
taken so much not from the presence of desire, but a total
absence of it as well as any other mental state. " Pack "
and his associates, too, were now a thing of the past, a
bitterly rough and vacant element. The glass lamp on a
bureau was smoking, he stepped forward to lower the
wick, when a knock fell on the door. A young Boston
relative of Honora's — a supercilious individual in
checked trousers and lemon-colored gloves — announced
tibat they were waiting for Jason below. With a de-
termined settling of his shoulders and tightly drawn
lips, the latter marched resolutely forward.

The marriage was to be in the chamber across from
the one in which he had generally sat. Smilax and white
Killamey roses had been bowed over the mantel at the
farther end, and there Jason found the clergyman wait-
ing. The room was half full of people occupying chairs

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THE DARK FLEECE

brought from other parts of the house; and he ivas con-
scious of a sudden silence, an intent, curious scrutiny,
as he entered. An instinctive antagonism to this deep-
ened in him: he felt that, with the exception of his
father and mother, he hadn't a friend in the room. Such
other local figures as were there were facilely imitating
the cold stare of Honora's connections. He stood belliger-
ently facing Mrs. Cozzens' glacial calm, the inspection of
a man he had seen driving with Honora in Cottarsport,
now accompanied by a pettish, handsome girl, evidently
his wife. His father's weathered countenance, sunken
and dry on its bones, was blank, except for a faint doubt,
as if some mistake had been made which would pres-
ently be exposed, sending them about face. His mother,
however, was triumphant pride and justification personi-
fied. Then tibe music commenced — a harp, violin and
double bass.

The wedding ring firmly secured, Jason stirred with
a feeling of increasing awkwardness. He glared back,
with a protruding lip, at the fellow with the young
wife, at the small, aggressive group from Boston; and
then he saw that Honora was in the room. She was
coming slowly toward him. Her expression of absolute
unconcern released him from all petty annoyance, any
thought of the malicious onlookers. As she stopped at
his side she gave him a slight nod and smile; and at that
mcxnent a tremendous, sheer admiration for her was bom
in him.

Honora had chosen to be unattended — she had coolly
observed that she was well beyond the age for such
sentimentality — and he realized that the present would

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GOLD AND IRON

have been a racking occasion. for most wcmen; while it
was evident that she was not disturbed in the least. He
had a general impression of sugary white satin, of her
composed, ahnost disdainful face in a doud of veil with
little waxen orange flowers, of slender still hands, when
they turned from the room to the minister.

They liad gone over the marriage service together, he
had read it again in the kitchen at home; he was fairly
familiar with its periods and responses, and got through
with only a slight hesitation and half prompting. But
the thickness of his voice, in comparison with Honora's
q)en, decisive utterance, vainly annoyed him. He wanted
desperately to dear his throat. Suddenly it was over,
and Honora, in a swirl of satin, was sinking to her knees.
Beside her he listened with a feding of comfortable lull
to a lengthy prayer.

Rising, he perfunctorily dasped a number of indifferent
palms, replied inandy to gabbled expressions of good
will and hopes for the future immistakably pessimistic
in tone. Honora told him in a rapid aside the names of
those approaching. She smiled radiantly at his father
and mother, leaned forward and whispered in the latter's
ear; and they fdlowed the guests streaming into the din-
ing room.

There champagne was being opened by the caterer's
assistants from Boston. There were steaming platters of
terrapin and oysters and fowl. The table bore pyramids
of nuts and preserved fruit, hot Cinderdlas in cups with
sugar and wine, black case cake. Savoy biscuits, pumpkin
paste and frothed creams with preserved peach leaves.
A ladened plate was thrust into Jason's hand, and he

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I

THE DARK FLEECE

sat with it in a clatter of voices and topics that com-
pletely ignored him. He was isolated in the absorption
of food and wine, in a conversational exchange as strange
to him as if it had been spoken in a foreign language.

Honora was busily talking to young Mrs. Fifield —
he remembered the name now. Apparently she had for-
gotten his existence. At first this annoyed him; he de-
termined to force his way into their attention, but a
wiser realization held him where he was. Honora was
exactly right, he had nothing in common with these peo-
ple, probably not one of them would come into his life
or house again. While his wife, in the fact of her mar-
riage, had clearly signified how little important they were
to her. His father joined him.

"You made certain when tibe New York packet
leaves? " he queried.

" Everything's fixed," Jason reassured him.

" Your mother wanted to see you. But she got set
and is kind of timid about moving." Jason rose promptly,
and, with the elder, found Mrs. Hazzard Burrage. " I'd
like to have Honora, too," the latter told tibem, and Jason
turned sharply to find her. When tibey stood facing the
old couple his mother hesitated doubtfully, then she put
out her hand to the woman in wedding array. But
Honora ignored it; leaning forward she kissed tibe round,
bright cheek.

"You have to be patient with them at times," the
mother said, looking up anxiously.

" I'm afraid, Jason will need that warning," Honora
replied; " he is a very imprudent man."

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GOLD AND IRON

XVI

Jason's mind returned to this later, sitting in the house
that had been the Canderays', but which now was his
too. Honora's remark to his mother had been dear in
itself, but it suggested wide speculations beyond his grasp.
For instance — why, after all, had Honora married him?
He was forced to acknowledge that it was not the result
of any overwhelming feeling for him. The manner of
their wedding, the complete absence of the emotion sup-
posed to be the incentive of such consummations, Honora
herself, all denied any effort to fix such a personally satis-
factory cause. That she might have had no other op-
portunity — Honora was not as young as she had been —
he dismissed as obviously absurd. Why

His gaze was fastened upon the carpet, and he saw
tibat time and the passage of feet had worn away the
design. He looked about the room, and was surprised
to discover a general dinginess which he had never no-
ticed before. He said nothing, but, in his movements
about the house, examined the furnishings and walls, and
an astonishing fact was thrust upon him — the cele-
brated dwelling was grievously run down. It was plain
that no money had been spent on it for years. The
chaise, too, and the astrakhan collar on Coggs' coat, were
worn out.

He considered this at breakfast — his wife behind a
tall Shef&eld coffee urn — and he was aware of the cold
edge of a distasteful possibility. The tibought enveloped
him insidiously, like the fog which often rolled through

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THE DARK FLEECE

the Narrows and over the town, that the Canderays were
secretly impoverished, and Honora had married him only
for his money. Jason was not resentful of this in it-
self, since he had been searching for a motive he could
accept, but it struck him jn a peculiarly vulnerable
spot — his admiration for his wife, for Honora. The
idea, although he assured himself that the thing was
readily comprehensible, somehow managed to diminish
her, to tarnish the luster she held for him. It was far
beneath the elevation on which Cottarsport had placed
the Canderays; and he suffered a distinct sense of loss,
a feeling of the staleness and disappointment of living.

The more he considered this explanation the more he
was convinced of its probability. A great deal of his
genuine warmth in his marriage evaporated. Still —
Honora had married him, she had given herself in re-
turn for what material advantage he might bring; and he
would have to perform his part thoroughly. He ought
to have known that

What he must do now was to save them both from any
painful revelation by keeping forever hid that he was
aware of her purpose, he must never expose himself by
a word or act; and he must make her understand that
whatever he had was absolutely hers. It would be neces-
sary for her to go to the money with entire freedcHn and
without any accounting.

This, he found, was not so easy to establish as he
thought. Honora was his wife, but nevertheless there
was a well marked reticence between them, a formal nicety
to which he was both susceptible and heartily in accord.
He couldn't just thrust his fortune before her on the

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GOLD AND IRON

table. He hesitated through the day, on. the verge of
various blunders; and then, in the evening, said in a
studied casuality of manner:

^'What do you think about fixing some of the rooms
over new? You might get tired of seeing the same things
for so long. I saw real elegant furniture in Boston."

She looked about indifferently. '^ I think I wouldn't
like it changed," she remarked, almost in the manner of
a defense. '^ I suppose it does seem worn to you; but
I'm used to it; there are so many associations. I am
certain I'd be lost in new hangings."

Jason was so completely silenced by her reply that he
felt he must have shown some confusion, for her gaze
deliberately turned to him. " Is there any particular
tibing you would like repaired? " she inquired.

" No, of course not," he said hastily. " I think it's
all splendid. I wouldn't change a curtain, only — -

but " be cursed himself for a clumsy fool while

Honora continued to study him. He endeavored to shield
himself behind the trivial business of lighting a cheroot;
but he felt Honora's query searching him out Finally,
to his extreme dismay, he heard her say:

" Jason, I believe you tibink I married you for money 1 "

Pretense, he realized, would be no good now.

'' Something like that did occur to me," he acknowl-
edged desperately.

" Really," she told him sharply. " I could be cross
very easily. You are too stupid. Father did wonder-
fully well on his voyages, and his profit Was invested by
Frederic Cozzens, one of the shrewdest financiers of his

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THE DARK FLEECE

day. I have twice, probably tibree times, as much as
you."

She confronted him with a faintly sparkling resentment.
However, the pleasure, the reassurance, in what he had
just heard made him indifferent to the rest. It was
impossible now to comprehend how he had been such a
block! He even smiled at her, which, he was delighted
to observe, obviously puzzled her.

" Perhaps I ought to tell you, Jason, and perhaps it
is too late already, that I thought I married you because
1 was lonely, because I feared the future. Anyhow, that's
what I told myself tibe night I sent for you. You might
have a right to complain very bitterly about it."

" If I have I won't," he assured her cheerfully.

^' I thought that then; but now I am not at all sure.
It no longer seems so simple, so easily explained. I
used to feel that I understood myself very thoroughly,
I could look inside and see what was tibere; but in the
last month I haven't been able to; and it is very dis-
turbing."

"Anyhow we're married," he announced comfortably.

" That's a beautiful way to feel," she remarked. " I
appear to get less sure of things as I grow older, which
is pathetic."

He wondered what, exactly, she meant by this. Honora
said a great many little things which, their meaning es-
caping him, gave him momentary doubts. He discovered
that she had a habit of saying things indirectly, and that,
as the seriousness of the occasion increased, her manner
became lighter and he could depend less on the mere or-

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GOLD AND IRON

der of her words. This continually disconcerted him, put
him on the defensive and at small disadvantages: he
was never quite at ease with Honors.

Obversely — the ugly shade of mercenary purpose dis-
pelled — dose at hand his admiration for her grew.
Every detail of her living was as fine as that publicly
exposed in the drawing room. She was not rigidly and
impossibly perfect, in, for instance, the inflexible atti-
tude of Olive Stanes; Honora had a very human impa-
tience, she could be disagreeable, he found, in the morn-
ing, and she undoubtedly felt herself superior to the
commonalty of life. But in the ordering of her person
there was a wonderfully exact delicacy and fragrant
charm. Juist as she had no formal manner so, he dis-
covered, she possessed no "good" clothes; she dressed
evidently from some inner necessity, and not merely for
the sake of impression. She had, too, a remarkable
vigor of expression; Honora was not above swearing at
contradictory circumstance; and she was so free of small
pruderies that often she became a cause of onbarrassment
to him. At times he would tell himsdf uneasily that her
conduct was not quite ladylike; but at the same instant
his amusement in her would mount until it tibreatened
him with laughter.

There was a great deal to be learned from Honora, he
told himself; and tiben he would speculate whether he
were progressing in that acquisition; and whether she
were happy; no, not happy, but contented. Ignorant of
her reason for marrying he vaguely dreaded the possibility
of its departure, mysterious as it had come, leaving her
regarding him with surprise and disdain. He tried des-

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THE DARK FLEECE

peratdy, consciously, to hold her interest and esteem.
That was the base of his conception of their married
existence, which, then, he was entirely willing to accept

XVII

However, as the weeks multiplied without bringing him
any corresponding increase in the knowledge of both
Honora and their true situation, he was aware of a dis-
turbance bom of his very pleasure in her; an uncom-
fortable feeling of insecurity fastened upon him. But
all this he was careful to keep hidden. There was evi-
dently no doubt in the minds of Cottarsport of the envi-
ableness of his position — with all that gold, wedded to
Honora Canderay, living in the Canderay mansion. The
more solid portion of the town gave him a studied con-
sideration denied to the mere acquisition of wealth; and
the rough element, once his companion but now relentlessly
held at a distance, regarded him with a loud disdain
fully as humanly flattering. Sometimes with Honora
he passed the latter, and they grumbled an obscure ac-
knowledgment of his curt greeting; when he was alone,
they openly disparaged his attainments and qualified
pride.

There were "Pack" Glower, an able seaman whose
indolent character had dissipated his opportunities of em-
ployment without harming his slow, powerful body.
Emery Radlaw, the brother of the apothecary and a
graduate of Williams College, a man of vanished refine-
ments and taker of strange drugs; as thin and erratically
rapid in movements as Clower was slow. . Steven, an in-

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GOLD AND IRON

credibly soiled Swede. John Vleet, the master and part
owner of a fishing schooner, a capable individual on the
sea but an insanely violent drunkard on land. There
were others, all widely different but alike in tibe bitter-
ness of a common failure and the habit of assuaging
doubtfully self-placed opinion, of ministering to crawling
nerves, with highly potential stimulation.

Jason passed '' Pack " and Emery Radlaw on a day
of late March, and a mocking and purposely audible
aside almost brought him to an adequate reply. He had
disposed of worse men than tibese in California and the
Isthmus. His arrogant temper rose and tibreatened to
master him; but something more powerful held him
steadily and silently on his way. This was his measure-
less admiration for Honora, his determination to involve
her in nothing that would detract from her fineness and
erect pride. Brawling on the street would not do for her
husband. He must give her no cause to lessen what in-
comprehensible feeling, liking, she might have for him,
give life to no regrets for a hasty and perhaps only half
considered act. After this, in passing any of his late,
temporary associates, he failed to express even the per-
functory consciousness of their being.

XVIII

In April he was obliged to admit to himself that he
knew no more of Honora's attitude toward him than he
had on the day of their wedding. He recognized that she
made no show of emotion, it was an essential part of her
to seem at all times immoved. That was well enough for

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THE DARK FLEECE

the face she turned toward the world; but directed at him,
her husband, its enigmatic quality began to obsess his
mind. What Honora thought of him, why she had mar-
ried him, became an almost continuous question.

It bred an increasing sense of instability that became
loud, defiant. More than once he was at the point of
self-betrayal: query, demand, objection, would rise on
a temporary angry flood to his lips. But, struggling,
behind a face as unmoved as Honora's own, he would
suppress his resentment, the sense of injury, and smoke
with the appearance of the greatest placidity.

His regard for his wife placed an extraordinary check
on his impulses and utterance. He deliberated carefully
over his speech, watched her with an attention not far
from a concealed anxiety, and was quick to absorb any
small conventions unconsciously indicated by her re-
marks. She never instructed or held anything over him;
he would have been acutely sensitive to any air of superior-
ity, and immediately antagonized. But Honora was en-
tirely free from pretentions of that variety; she was as
clear and honest as a goblet of water.

Jason's regard for her grew pace by pace with the feel-
ing of baffling doubt. He was passing through tibe pub-
lic square, and his thoughts were interrupted by a faint
drifting sweetness. " I believe the lilacs are out," he
said unconsciously aloud and stopping. His surround-
ing was remarkably serene, withdrawn — the courthouse,
a small block of brick with white corniced windows, flat
Ionic portico and slatted wood lantern with a bell, stood
in the middle of the grassy common shut in by an ir-
regular rectangle of dwellings with low eaves and gardens.

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GOLD AND IRON

The sun shone with a beginning warmth in a vague sky
that intensified the early green. It seemed tibat he could
see, against a house, the lavender blur of the lilac blos-
soms.

Then his attention was attracted by the figure of a man,
at once strange and familiar, coming toward him with a
dragging gait. Jason studied the other until a sudden
recognition clouded his countenance, filled him with a
swift, unpleasant surprise. He had never believed that —

" Thomas 1" he exclaimed. "Whenever did you get
back? "

"Yesterday," said Thomas Cast

Well, here was Thomas returned from California like
himself. Yet the most negligent view of the latter re-
vealed that there was a vast difference between Jason and
this last Argonaut — Thomas Cast's loosely liung jaw,
which gave to his countenance an air of irresolution, was
now exaggerated by an aspect of utter defeat. His ill con-
ditioned clothes, sodden brogans and stringy handker-
chief still knotted miner-fashion about his throat, all mul-
tiplied the fact of failure proclaimed by his attitude.

" How did you strike it? ** Jason uselessly asked.

"What chance has the prospector today?" the other
heatedly and indirectly demanded. " At first a man
could pan out something for himself; but now it's all
companies, all capital. The state's interfered too, claims
are being held up in court while tibeir owners might
starve, there are new laws and trimmings every week.
I struck it ridi on the Reys, but I was drove out before
I could get my stakes in. They tell me you did good."

"At last," Jason replied.

[310]

THE DARK FLEECE

"And married Honora Canderay, toa"

The other assented shortly.

" Some are shot with luck/' ThcHnas Gast proclaimed;
" tibey'd fall and skin their face on a nugget."

" How did you come back? "

"Worked my passage in a crazy clipper with moon-
sails and the halliards padlocked to the rail. Carried
away the foretopmast and yard off tibe Horn and ran
from port to port in a hundred and four days."

The conversation dwindled and expired. Thomas
Gast gazed about moodily, and Jason, with a tight mouth,
nodded and moved on. His mind turned back abruptly
to Eddie Lukens, the man who had robbed him of his
find in the early days of cradle mining, the man he had
killed.

He had said nothing of this to Honora; the experience
with Olive Stanes had convinced him of the advisability
of keeping past accident where, he now repeated, it be-
longed. He despaired of ever being able, in Cottars-
port, to explain the place and times that had made his
act comprehensible. How could he picture, here, the
narrow ravines cut by swift rivers from the stupendous
slopes and forests of the Sierra Nevada, the isolation of
a handful of men with their tents by a plunging stream in
a rift so deep that there would be only a brief glimmer
of sunlight at noon? And, failing that, the ignorant
could never grasp the significance of the stillness, the
timeless shadows, which the miners penetrated in tibeir
madness for gold. They'd never realize the strangling
passion of tibis search in a wilderness without habitation
or law or safety. They could not understand the primary

[311]

GOLD AND IRON

justice of such rude courts as the miners were able to
maintain on the more populous outskirts of the region.

He, Jason Burrage> had been tried by a jury for kill-
ing Eddie Lukens> and had been exonerated. It had
been months since he had reiterated this dreary and only
half satisfying formula. The inner necessity filled him
with a shapeless concern such as might have been caused
by a constant, unnatural shadow flickering out at his
back. He almost wished that he had told Honora at
the beginning; and then he fretfully cursed the incer-
titude of life — whatever he did appeared, shortly after,
wrong. But it was obvious that he couldn't go to her
with the story today; the only time for that had been be-
fore his marriage; now it would have the look of a con-
fession of weakness, opportunely timed; and he could
think of nothing more calculated to antagonize Honora
than such a crumbling admission.

All this had been re-animated by the mere presence of
Thomas Gast in Cottarsport; certainly, he concluded, an
insufficient reason for his troubling. Gast had been a
miner, too, he was familiar with the conditions in the
West. . . . There was a great probability that he hadn't
even heard of the unfortunate affair; while Olive Stanes
would be dragged to death rather than garble a word of
what he had told her: Jason willingly acknowledged this
of Olive. He resolutely banished the whole complica-
tion from his mind; and, walking with Honora after
supper in the garden back of their house, he was again
absorbed in her vivid delicate charm.

The garden was deep and narrow, a flight of terraces
connected by a flagged path and steps. At the bottom

[312]

THE DARK FLEECE

were the bergamot pear trees that had been Ithiel Can-
deray's especial charge in his last, retired years. Their
limbSy faintly blurred with new foliage, rose above the
wall, against a tranquil evening sky with a white slip
of May moon. The peace momentarily disturbed in Jason
Burrage's heart flooded back, a sense of great well-being
settled over him. Honora rested her hand within his
arm at an inequality of the stone walk.

" I am really a very bad wife, Jason," she said sud-
denly; " self-absorbed and inattentive."

" You suit me," he replied inadequately. He was
extraordinarily moved by her remark: she had never be-
fore even suggested that she was conscious of obligation.
He wanted to put into words some of the warmth of
feeling which filled his heart, but suitable speech evaded
him. He could not shake off the fear that such protesta-
tions might be displeasing to her restrained being. Mov-
ing slightly away from him she seemed, in the soft gloom,
more wonderful than ever. Set in white against the
depths of the garden, her face, dimly visible, appeared
to be without its customary, faintly mocking smile.

"Do you remember, Jason," she continued, "how I
once said I thought I was marrying you because I was
lonely, and that I found out it wasn't so; I didn't know
why " she paused.

He was enveloped by an intense eagerness to hear her
to the end: it might be that something beyond his great-
est hopes was to follow. But disappointment overtook
him.

" I was certain I'd see more clearly into myself soon,
but I haven't; it's been useless trying. And I've de^

[313]

GOLD AND IRON

cided to do this — to give up thinking about things for
myself, and to wait for you to show me."

" But I can*t do that," he protested, facing her; " more
than half the time I wonder over almost that same ques-
tion — why you ever married me ? "

'^This is a frightful situation," she observed with a
return of her familiar manner; *' two mature people joined
for life, and neither with the slightest idea of the reason.
Anyhow I have given it up. ... I suppose IH die in
ignorance. Perhaps I was too old ^"

He interrupted her with an uncustomary incivility, a
heated denunciation of what she had been about to say.

" So you are not sorry," he remarked after a little.

" No," she answered slowly, " and I'm certain I shan't
be. I'm not that sort of person. I would go down to
ruin sooner than regret." She said no more, but went
into the house, leaving Jason in the potent spring night.

There was no longer any doubt about the lilacs, the
air was ladened with their scent. An entire hedge of
them must have blossomed as he was standing there. He
moved to the terrace below: there might be buds on the
pear trees. But it was impossible to see the limbs. How
could Honora expect him to make their marriage clear?
He had never before seen her face so serene. He thought
that he heard a vague stir outside the wall, and he re-
membered the presence of a semi^public path. Now there
was a cautious mutter of voices. He advanced a step,
then stopped at a scrambling of shoes against the walL
A vague form shouldered into view, momentarily ding-
ing above him, and a harsh voice cried:

"Murderer I"

[314]

THE DARK FLEECE

XIX

Even above the discordant dash of his startled sensi-
bilities rose the fear, instantaneously bom, that Honora
had heard. All the vague uneasiness which had possessed
him at Thomas Cast's return solidified into a recognizable,
leaden dread — the conviction that his wife must learn
fhe story of his misadventure told with animus and
lies. Then a more immediate dread held him rigidly at-
tentive: there might be a second cry, a succession of them
shouted discordantly to the sky. Honora would come out,
the servants gather, while that accusing voice, indistin-
guishable and disembodied by the night, proclaimed his
error. This was not the shooting of Eddie Lukens, but
the neglect to comprehend Honora Canderay.

Absolute silence followed. He made a motion toward
the wall, but, oppressed by the futility of such an act,
arrested himself in the midst of a step and stood with a
foot extended. The stillness seemed to thicken the air
until he could hardly breathe; he was seized by a sullen
anger at the events which had gathered to betray him.
The crying tones had been like a chemical acting on his
complexity, changing him to an entirely different entity,
darkening his being; the peace and fragrance of the
night were destroyed by the anxiety that how sat upon
him.

Convinced that nothing more was to follow here, he was
both impelled into the house, to Honora, and held mo-
tionless by the fear of seeing her turn toward him with
her familiar light surprise and a question. However,

[315]

GOLD AND IRON

he slowly retraced his way over the terraces, through a
trellis hung with grape vines, and into the hall. As he
hoped, Honora was on the opposite side of the dwelling.
She had heard nothing. Jason sat down heavily, his gaze
lowered and somber.

The feeling smote him that he should tell Honora of
the whole miserable business at once, make what excuse
for himself was possible, and prepare her for the in-
evitable public revelation. He pronounced her name,
with the intention of doing this; but she showed him such
a tranquil, superfine face that he was unable to proceed.
Her interrogation held for a moment and then left him,
redirected to a minute, colorful square of glass beads.

A multiplication of motives kept him silent, but prin-
cipal among them was the familiar shrinking from ap-
pearing to his wife in any little or mean guise. It was
precisely into such a peril that he had been forced. He
felt, now, that she would overlook a murder such as the
one he had committed far more easily than an intangible
error of spirit. He could actually picture Honora, in his
place, shooting Eddie Lukens; but he couldn't imagine
her in his humiliating situation of a few minutes before.

He turned to the consideration of whom it might be
that had called over the wall, and immediately recognized
that it was one of a small number, one of " Pack "
Glower's gang: Thomas Gast would have gravitated
quickly to their company, and their resentment of his,
Jason Burrage's, place in life must have been nicely
increased by Gast's jealousy. The latter, Jason knew, had
not washed an honest pan of gravel in his journey and
search for a mythical, easy wealth; he had hardly left the

[316]

THE DARK. FLEECE

littered fringe of San Francisco, but had filled progres-
sively menial places in the less admirable resorts and
activities.

With so much established beyond doubt he was con-
fronted by the necessity for immediate action, the possi-
bility of yet averting all that threatened him, of preserv-
ing his good opinion in Honora's eyes. Clower and
Emery Radlaw and the rest, with neither the balance of
property nor position, lawless and inflamed with drink,
were a difficult opposition. He repeated that he had mas-
tered worse, but out in California, where a man had been
nakedly a man; and then he hadn't been married. There
he would have found them at once, and an explosion of
will, perhaps of powder, would have soon cleared the
atmosphere. But in Cottarsport, with so much to keep
intact, he was all but powerless.

Yet, the following day, when he saw the apothecary's
brother enter the ccxnbined drug and liquor store, he
followed; and, to his grim satisfaction, found Thomas
Gast already inside. The apothecary gave Jason an in-
hospitable stare, but the latter ignored him, striding
toward Gast. " Just what is it you've brought East about
me? " he demanded.

The other avoided the query, his gaze shifting over
the floor. "Well?" Jason insisted, after a pause.
Thomas Gast was leaning against a high counter at one
side, behind which shelves held various bottles and paper
boxes and tins. The counter itself was ladened with
scales and a mortar, powders and vividly striped candy
in tall glass jars.

" You know well as I do," Gast finally admitted.

[317]

GOLD AND IRON

'^Then we're both certain there's no reason for name
calling over my back wall."

'* You shot him, didn't you? " the other asked thinly.
*'You can't get away from the fact that you killed a
pardner.'^

"I did," said Jason Burrage harshly. "He robbed
me. But I didn't shout thief at him from the safety of
the dark; it was right after dinner, the middle of the
day. He was ready first, too; but I shot him. Can
you get anything from that? "

" You ought to realize this isn't San Francisco," Rad-
law, the drug taker, put in. " A man couldn't be coolly
derringered in Cottarsport. There's law here, there's
order." He had a harried face, dulled eyes under a fine
brow, a tremulous flabby mouth, with white crystals of
powder adhering to its comers, and a countenance like
the yellow oilskins of the fishermen.

Jason turned darkly in the latter's direction. " What
have you or Clower got to do with law? "

" Not only them," the apothecary interposed, " but all
the other men of the town are interested in keeping it
orderly. We'll have no western rowdyism in Cottars-
port."

"Then hear this," Jason again addressed Thcmias
Gast, " see that you tell the truth and all the truth. My
past belongs to me, and I don't aim to have it maligned by
any empty liar back from the Coast. And either of you
Radlaws — I'm not going to be blanketed by the town
drunkards or old women, either. If I have shot one man
I can shoot another, and I care this much for your
talk — if any of this muck is allowed to annoy Mrs. Bur-

[318]

THE DARK FLEECE

rage 111 kill whoever starts it, spang in the middle of
day/'

" That's where it gets him," the ex-scholar stated.

"Just there," Jason agreed; "and this Gast, who has
brought so much back from California, can tell you this,
too — that I had the name of finishing what I began."

But, once more outside, alone, his appearance of resolu-
tion vanished: the merest, untraceable rumor would be
sufficient to accomplish all that he feared, damage him
irreparably with Honora. He was far older in spirit
and body than he had been back on Indian Bar; he had
passed the tumultuous years of living. The labor and
privation, the continuous immersion in frigid streams, had
lessened his vitality, sapped his ability for conflict. All
that he now wished was the happiness of his wife, Honora,
and the quietude of their big, peaceful house; the winter
evenings by the Franklin stove and the spring evenings
with the windows open and the candles guttering in the
mild, lilac-hung air.

XX

Together with his uncertainty the pleasure in the sheer
fact of his wife increased; and with it the old wonderment
at their situation returned. What, for instance, did she
mean by saying that he must explain her to herself? He
tried again all the conventional reasons for marriage
without satisfaction, the sentimental and material equally
failed. Jason felt that if he could penetrate this mys-
tery his grasp on actuality would be enormously improved;
he might, with such knowledge, successfully defy Thomas

[319]

COLD AND IRON

Gast and all that past which equally threatened to reach
out destructively into the future.

His happiness, in its new state of fragility, became
infinitely precious; a thing to dwell on at nights, to pon-
der over walking through the town. Then, disagreeably
aware of what overshadowed him, he would watch such
passersby as spoke, searching for some sign of the spread-
ing of his old fault. Often he imagined that he saw such
an indication, and he would hurry home, in a panic of
haste — which was, too, intense reluctance — to discover
if Honora yet knew.

He approached her a hundred times determined to end
his misery of suspense, and face the incalculable weight
of her disdain; but on each occasion he failed as he had
at the first. Now his admittance seemed too damned
roundabout; in an unflattering way forced upon hint
His position was too insecure, he told himself. . . .
Perhaps the threat in the apothecary's shop would be suffi-
cient to shut the mouth of rumor. It had not been empty;
he was still capable of uncalculating rage. How closely
was HoncM-a bound to him? What did she think of him
at heart?

He couldn't bear to remember how he had laid open
her dignity, the dignity and position of the Canderays
in Cottarsport, to whispered vilification. Connected with
him she was being discussed in " Pack " Glower's shanty.
His mind revolved endlessly about &e same few topics, he
elaborated and discarded countless schemes to secure
Honora — he even considered giving Thomas Gast a sum
of money to repair what harm the latter had wrought.
Useless — his danger flourished on hatred and envy and

[320]

THE DARK FLEECE

malice. However exculpable the killing of Eddie Lukens
had been, the results were immeasurably unfortunate, for
a simple act of violent, local justice.

They were in the chaise above Cottarsport; Coggs had
died through the winter, and his place been taken by a
young coachman from the city. The horses rested som-
nolently in their harness, the bright bits of rubbed silver
plate shining. Honora was looking out over the har-
bor, a gentian blue expanse. " Good Heavens," she cried
with sudden energy, " I am getting old at a sickening
rate. Only last year the schooners and sea made me as
restless as a gull. I wanted to sail to the farthest places;
but now the boats are — are no more than boats. It
fatigues me to think of their jumping about; and I
haven't walked down to the wharves for six weeks. Do
I look a haggard fright ? "

" You seem as young as before I went to California,"
he replied simply. She did. A strand of hair had
slipped from its net, and wavered across her flawless
cheek, her lips were bright and smooth, her shoulders
slimly square.

" You're a marvelous woman, Honora," he told her.

She gazed at him, smiling. " I wonder if you realize
^at that is your first compliment of our entire wedded
Ufe? "

'* Ridiculous," he declared incredulously.

" Isn't it? "

** I mean I'm complimenting you all the time. I
think "

*' You can hardly escpect me to hear thoughts," she in-
terrupted.

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GOLD AND IRON

He silently debated another — it was to be about the
ribbon on her throat — but decided against giving it
voice. Why, like the reasons for so much else, he was
unable to say; they all had their root in the blind sense of
the uncertainty of his situation. Throughout the eve-
ning his thoughts shifted ceaselessly from one position
to another. This, he realized, could not continue indefi-
nitely; soon, from within or out, Honora and himself
must be revealed to each other. He was permeated by
the weariness of constant strain; the peace of the past
months had been destroyed; it seemed to him that he
had become an alien to the serenity of the high, tranquil
rooms and of his wife.

He rose early the following morning, and descended
into a rapt purity of sunlight and the ecstatic whistling
of robins. The front door had not been opened; and, as
he turned its shining brass knob, his gaze fell upon a
sheet of paper projecting below. Jason bent, securing
it, and, with a premonition of evil, thrust the folded
scrap into his pocket. He turned through the house
into the garden; and there privately scrutinized a half
sheet with a clumsily formed, disguised writing:

" This," he read, " will serve you notice to move on.
Dangerous custcxners are not desired here. Take a sug-
gestion in time and skip bad consequences. You can't
hide back of your wife's hoops." It was signed " Com-
mittee."

A robin was thrilling the air with melody above his
head. Jason listened mechanically as the bird ended his

322

THE DARK FLEECE

song and flew away. Then the realization of what he
had found overwhelmed him with a strangling bitter-
ness: he, Jason Barrage, had been ordered from his birth-
place, he had been threatened and accused of hiding be-
hind a woman, by the oft-scouring of the alleys and rum
holes. A feeling of impotence thrust its chilling edge
into the swelling heat of his resentment. He would
have to stand like a condemned animal before the im-
pending, fatal blow; he was held motionless, helpless, by
every circumstance of his life and hopes.

He crumpled the warning in a clenched hand. How
Cottarsport would point and jeer at him, at Jason Bur-
rage who was Honora Canderay's husband, a murderer;
Jason, who had returned from California with the gold
fleece! It wasn't golden, he told himself, but stained
— a fleece dark with blood, tartiished from hellish un-
happiness, a thing infected with immeasurable miseries.
Its edge had fallen on Olive Stanes and left her — he
had passed her only yesterday — dry-lipped and shrtmken
into sterile middle age. It premised him only sorrow,
and now its influence was reaching up toward Honora,
in herself serenely apart from the muck and defllement
out of which he thought he had struggled.

The sun, rising over the bright spring foliage, flUed the
garden with sparkling color. His wife, in a fllmy white
dress, called him to breakfast. She waited for him with
her faint smile, against the cool interior. He went for-
ward isolated, lonely, in his secret distress.

323

1

GOLD AND IRON

XXI

This communication, like the spoken accusation of a
previous evening, was, apparently, without other conse-
quences. Jason's exterior life progressed without a devia-
tion from its usual, smooth course. It was dear to him
that no version of the facts about the killing of Eddie
Lukens had yet spread in Cottarsport. This, he decided,
considering the diaracter of Thomas Gast, the oblique
quality of his statements, was natural. He could not
doubt that such public revelation, if threat and intimida-
tion failed, must come. Meanwhile he was victimized
by a growing uncertainty — from what direction would
the next attack thrust?

He smiled grimly to himself at the memory of the
withdrawn and secure aspect of the town when he had
first returned fran the West. To him, striding across
the hills from the Dunmer stage, it had resembled an
ultimate haven. The seeming harmony and peace of
the grey fold of houses about their placid harbor had
concealed possibilities of debasement as low as Cali-
fornia's worst camps. Now, successful, when he had
looked for the reward of his long years of brutal toil,
the end of struggle, he was confronted by the ugliest sit-
uation of his existence.

He was glad that he had always been a silent man, or
Honora would have noticed and demanded the cause
of the mdroseness which must have settled over him.
They sat no longer before the stove in the drawing room,
but on a side porch that commanded an expanse of lawn

324

THE DARK FLEECE

and a high privet hedge, while he smoked morosdy at
the inevitable cheroots, gloomily searching for a way
from the difficulty closing in upon hint.

Honora had been to Boston, and she was describing
lightly an encounter with her aunt, Herriot Cozzens. He
was only half conscious of her amused voice. Clouds had
obscured the evening sky, and there was an air of sus-
pense, like that preceding a thunder storm, in the thicken-
ing dark. A restlessness filled Jason which he was un-
able to resist; and, with a short, vague explanation, he
rose and proceeded out upon the street. There, his hands
clasped behind his back and head lowered, he wandered
on, lost in inner despondence.

He turned into the courthouse square, dimly lighted by
gas lamps at its outer confines, and paced across the grass,
stirring a few wan fireflies. It was blacker still beyond
the courthouse. He stumbled slightly, recovered himself,
and wearily commenced a return home. But he had
scarcely taken a step when a figure closed in upon him,
materializing suddenly out of the darkness. He stopped
and was about to speak when a violent blow from behind
grazed his head and fell with a splintering impact on his
shoulder. He stood for a moment bewildered by the un-
expected pain; then, as he saw another shape, and another,
gather around him, he came sharply to his senses. His
hand thrust into a pocket, but it was empty — he had laid
aside the derringer in Cottarsport.

His assailants grappled with him swiftly, and he swayed
struggling and hitting out with short blows in the center
of a silent, vicious conflict. A rough hard palm was
crushed against his mouth,, a head ground into his throat,

32S

GOLD AND IRON

and a heavy, mucous breath of rum smote him. There was
muttered cursing, and low, disregarded commands. A
cotton handkerchief, evidently used as a mask, tore ofF
in Jason's hand; strained voices, their caution lost in pas-
sion, took unmistakably the accents of " Pack " Clower
and the Swede, Steven. A thinner tone outside the swirl-
ing bodies cried low and urgent, " Get it done with." A
fist was driven against Jason's side, leaving a sharp,
stabbing hurt, a heavy kick tore his thigh. Then he got
his fingers into a neck and put in the grip all the sinewy
strength got by long years with a miner's pan and shovel.
A choked sob responded, and blood spread stickily over his
palms.

It seemed to Jason Burrage that he was shaking himsdf
free, that he was victorious; with a final supreme wrench
he stood alone, breathing in gusts. There was a second's
imponderable stillness, and then the entire night appeared
to crash down upon his head . . •

XXII

He thought it was the fliuned river, all their sum-
mer's labor, bursting over him. He was whirled
downward through a swift course of jagged pains,
held under the hurtling water and planks and stones.
He fought, blind and strangled, but he was soon
crushed into a supine nothingness. Far below the
river discharged him: he was lying beside a slaty bank
in which the gold glittered like fine and countless fish
scales. But he couldn't move, and the bank flattened into
a plain under a gloomy ridge, with a camp of miners. He

326

THE DARK FLEECE

saw that it was Sunday, for the men were all grouped be-
fore the tents singing. There was Eddie Lukens gravely
waving a hand to the beat of the melody:

i< (

Don't you cry for me.
I'm going to Calaveras
With my wash bowl on my knee.'"

It was undoubtedly Eddie, his partner, but he had never
seen him so white and — why, he had a hole over his eyel
Eddie Lukens was dead; it wasn't decent for him to be
standing up, flapping his hands and singing. , Jason bent
forward to remonstrate, to persuade him to go back —
back to where the dead belonged. Then he remembered,
but it was too late: Eddie had him in an iron clutch, he
was dragging him, too, down.

Jason made a convulsive effort to escape, he threw back
his head, gasping; and saw Honora, his wife, bending
over him. The tormenting illusion slowly perished —
this was Cottarsport and not California, he was back
again in the East, the present, married to Honora Can-
deray. An astounding fact, but so. Through the window
of his room he could see the foliage of a great horse-
chestnut tree that stood by the side walk; it was swelling
into flower. Full memory now flooded back upon him,
and with it the realization that probably his happiness
was destroyed.

It was impossible to tell how much Honora knew of the
cause of the assault upon him. She was always like that
— enigmatic. But, whatever she knew now, soon she
would have to hear all. Even if he wished to lie it would
be impossible to fabricate, maintain, a convincing cover

327

GOLD AND IRON

for what had happened. The most superficial, necessary
investigation would expose the story brought home by
Thomas Cast.

The time had come when he must confide everything to
Honora; perhaps she would overlook his cowardice.
About to address her, he fell into a bottomless coma, and a
day passed before he had gathered himself sufficiently to
undertake his task. She was sitting facing him, her chair
by a window, where her fingers were swiftly and smoothly
occupied. Her features were a little blurred against the
light, and — her disconcerting scrutiny veiled — he fdt
this to be an assistance.

" Those men who broke me up," he began disjointedly,
surprised at the thin uncertainty of his voice, " I know
pretty well who they are. Ought to get most of them."

" We thought you could say," she rejoined in an even
tone. ** Scmie guesses were made, but it was better to
wait till you could give a statement."

" Am I badly hurt, Honora? " he asked suddenly.

"Not dangerously," she assured him. "You have
splendid powers of recuperation."

"Ill have to go on," he added hurriedly, "and tell
you the rest — why I was beaten."

" It would be better not," she stated. " You ought to
be as calm as possible. It may quiet you, Jason, to hear
that I know now."

" You know what the town has been saying," he cried
in bitter revolt, " what lies Thomas Gast spread. You've
heard all the envy and malice and drunken vileness of
sots. It isn't right for you to think you know before I
could speak a word of defense."

328

THE DARK FLEECE

''Not only what the town says, Jason/' she replied
simply, ''but the truth. Olive Stanes told me."

"Then — " an excited weakness broke his voice in a
sob, and Honora rose, crossing the room to his bed. " You
must positively stop talking of this now," she directed.
" If you attempt it I shall go away and send a nurse."

He was helpless against her will, and sank into semi-
slumberous wonder. Honora knew all, Olive Stanes had
told her. She was as non-committal, he complained to
himself, as a wooden Indian. She might have excused
him without a second thought, and it might be that she
had finished with him entirely, that she was merely dis-
pensing a charity and duty; and, moving uneasily, or
lying propped up in a temporary release from suffering,
he would study her every movement in an endeavor to gain
her all-important opinion of him as he had been lately
revealed. It was useless; he was always, Jason felt, in
a state of disturbing suspense.

He determined to end it, however, in spite of what
Honora had said, on an afternoon when he was supported
down to the street and the chaise. His wife took her
place at his side, and they rolled forward into the ex-
pansive warmth of summer. Jason was impressed by the
sheer repetition of life; and, it seemed to him, that this
was the greatest happiness possible — such a procession of
days and drives, with Honora.

Her throat rose delicately from ruffled lace, circled by
a narrow black velvet band with a clasp of remarkable
diamonds; and he smiled at the memory of how he had
once thought she was marrying him for money. That
seemed years ago, but he was no nearer the solution of her

329

1

GOLD AND IRON

motive now than tfien. Her slim hands were folded in
her lap — how beautifully they were joined at the wrists,
her tapering fingers were like ivory. As he studied them
he was startled at their suddenly meeting in a rigid dasp,
the knuckles white and sharp. He looked up and saw
that they were drawing near a small group of men outside
the apothecary's shop.

A curious silence fell upon the latter as the chaise ap-
proached: there were the two Radlaws, one saturnine and
bleak, the other greenish, shattered by drugs; Thomas
Cast, Vleet, the fishing schooner's master, and a casual,
familiar passerby. Jason Burrage stared at them with a
stony ominous countenance, at which Cast made a gesture
of ccxnbined insolence and uncertainty. Jason had sunk
back on the cushions when he was astonished by Honora's
commanding the coachman to stop. It was evident that
she was about to descend; he put out a hand to restrain
her, but she disregarded him. His astonishment increased
to incredulity and then fear; he rose hurriedly, but relaxed
with a mutter of pain.

Honora, a Canderay, had taken the carriage whip from
its holder, and was walking direct and c(»nposed toward
Thomas Gast. She stopped a short distance away: before
an exclamation, a movement, was possible she had swept
the thong of the whip across Gast's face. The blow was
swung with force, and the man faltered, a burning welt
on the pallor of his countenance. The coachman and
Jason Burrage in the chaise, the men together on the side-
walk, seemed part of an inanimate group of which the
only thing endowed with life was the whip flickering
again, cutting and wrapping, about a face.

330

THE DARK FLEECE

There was a curiously ruthless impersonality about
Honora's erect presence, her icy cold profile. Memories of
old stories of Ithiel Canderay, the necessary, salt cruel-
ness of punishment in ships, flashed through Jason's
mind. An intolerable weight of time seemed to drag upon
him. Thomas Gast gave a hoarse gurgle and lurched
forward, but the relentless lash drove him back.

"You whisperer I " Honora said in her ringing voice,
''you liar and slabbering coward! It's necessary to cut
the truth out of you. When you talk again about Mr.
Burrage and the man he shot in California don't leave out
the smallest detail of his excmeration. Say that he had
been robbed, the other broke one of the first laws of
miners and should have been killed. You'd not have
done it, a knife in the back would be your thought, but
a man would!"

She flung the whip down on the bricks.

Thomas Gast pressed his hands to his face, and slow
red stains widened through his fingers. The apothecary
stood transfixed, his brother was shaking in a febrile and
congested horror. The woman turned disdainfully,
moved to the chaise; the coachman descended and offered
his arm as she mounted to the seat. The reins were
drawn and the horses started forward in a walk.

Honora's gaze was set, looking directly ahead; her
hands, in her lap of flowered muslin, were now relaxed;
they gave an impression of crushing weariness. Jason's
heart pounded like a forge hammer; a tremendous realiza-
tion was forced into his brain — he need never again
question why Honora had married him; his doubts were
answered, stopped, forever. He turned to her to speak an

331

GOLD AND IRON

insignificant part of his measurdess gratitude, but he was
choked, blinded by a passion of honor and homage.

Her gaze sou^t him, and there was a faint tremor
of her lips; it grew into the shadow of an ironic smile. J

Suddenly it was borne upon his new, acquiescent serenity
that Honora would always be a Canderay for him, he
must perpetually think of her in the terms of his early
habit; she would eternally be a little beyond him, a being
to approach, to attend, with ceremony. The memory and
sweep of all California, the pageant of life he had seen
on the way, his own boasted success and importance,
faded before the solid fact of Hcmora's commanding her-
itage in life, in Cottarsport

THB END

.k

The following pages contain an announcement of

Mr. Hergesheimer's

THE THREE BLACK PENNYS

which was regarded by many critics as the best
American novel published in 1917.

1

f

THE THREE BLA CK PENNYS

By Josq>h Hergesbeimer

This is the story of three dark men of the Penny
family; three men, and yet, in youth, middle and old
age, one man and one unbroken narrative. There are,
too, primarily, three women — Ludowika, a passionate
woman, Susan Brundon, a spiritual woman, and
Mariana, in whom both passion and spirit meet and are
interpreted in a smiling disdain of small prejudices and j

conventions, ^

The story proceeds against the developing hack- \

ground of steel, from the primitive iron forges and 'i

furnaces of the Province of Pennsylvania to the ' \

gigantic mills of today. Its course winds through the
early forests, hardly broken by the scattered settle-
ments on the fringe of America, through the solidifying
nation of 1840, to the complex problems of today. j

It is, however, concerned with no purpose but that \

of human happiness. In detail it is the story of the
incalculable effects, through a century and a half, of a
heedless and overwhelming love: there is great pos-
session, retribution, and a wreath of victory. -

"... He has here fashioned a novel out of distinctly
American life on an original pattern, caught the very air and
flavor of three widely seperated epochs of our history, evolved
living men and women, and told the story of their lives with
skill and art and understanding. . . . Whether as. a picture or
a criticism of life, Mr. Hergesheimer's novel is a notable
achievement Although dealing with three epochs so distant '
each from each, it is a close woven, smoothly flowing story,
and one hurries on from part to part as interested as if its
scenes were all laid within a single lifetime. Every one of its
many characters in each of its divisions, is toudied with life
and glows with verity. ... It is a book to arouse interest
inspire thought, and provoke discussion."— iVew York Times.

"Mr, Hergesbeimer is a master in his portrayal of the mind
of man and the blind, not-understood, forces whidh urge him
to what he does. He has brought out the haze whidi sur-
rounds the consciousness of man very realistically. The book
is finely done, and the three black Pennys live as only rarely
happens in the characters of fiction."— Boj/on Transcript.

"... a work of fiction which all reviewers should hail as
of shining distinction. , . • No one who reads it can fail to
compare it with Galsworthy's "The Dark Flower," but the
"Three Black Pennys" is a greater book in that it takes in
more life. ... he makes^ very vital at least three onen and as
many women. He does it all, too, in a distinguished fashion,
as one sure of his grasp and touch. ... It commands the
reader's admiration for its artistry and unrelaxingly engages
his deeper sympathies." — Reedy's Mirror,

In "The Three Black Pennys" the high promise of "The
(Lay Anthony" comes to fulfilment. The story is intelligently
planned, cleverly articulated, and written with great skill. It
has style, distinction, repose; it suggests, in more than one
way, the fine craftsmanship of John Galsworthy. The three
men who are its chief figures stand out from the page in all
the colors of life and the changing background behind them
is washed in with excellent art. Altogether, it is a novel that
commands respect Such sound writing is tragically rare in
America. — H. L. Mencken.

"... It is Hergesheimer at his best The three pictures
might be hung on a wall, so vivid, veracious and evocative are
they; and the finest artistry may be found in the admirable
diminuendo of the last section of the story — ^the passing away
of the Penny race, which decadence is conveyed to the reader
most artfully in tiie general slacking of tempo and mufflii^
of dynamic accents, its contrast with the buoyancy, the virility,
the brilliancy of the first section. I have high hopes for the
artistic future of the young man from Pennsylvania. Pray
tell him so for me." — James Huneker.

"The Three Black Pennys' will prove one of the most
stimulating and attractive books of several seasons past." —
Brooklyn Eagle.

"... an altogether notable book, a novel that should be
riead by those people who pride themselves on reading only the
few best things in fiction." — Chicago Post.

"The book has an epic quality. . . . Written in a sytle that
is as expressive as it is distinguished." — Indianapolis News.

"... a remarkable and original tale." — Detroit Free Press.

"In the writing there is a quality of sombre beauty one finds
pre-eminently in the pages of Joseph Conrad." — Philadelphia
Press.

"Ever read anything of Joseph Hergesheimer's? If not,
better begin at once, for Hergesheimer is going to attract
steady and accumulative attention. The Three Black Pennys,'
his new novel, proves his right to be seriously discussed." —
Chicago Herald.